


How (Not) To Have An Office Relationship

by cosmic_interference



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Office, Crushes, Emotional Constipation, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Miscommunication, OR IS IT, One-Sided Attraction, Oral Sex, Sex, Sort Of, Vaginal Sex, finn and poe r pissed, space idiots basically, stormpilot subplot, they like each other but dont know it, very reylo tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-07-07 17:55:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19856500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_interference/pseuds/cosmic_interference
Summary: In which Finn and Poe start various light bets on Kylo and Rey’s “relationship” after hooking them up on a date and Rey finds out, tells Kylo, as they both go on an epic mission to mess with Finn and Poe back. They skirt along the lines of what counts as tolerable office flirting and maybe something more.The goal is to prove Finn and Poe wrong — or right. Who knows.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> HI! I know I got Something Between Us going on in the background (and I got a more or less complete outline of that, trust me) but this crack idea wouldn't leave my head so, well. Here it is in all its crack-y glory, our space idiots butting heads again. Seriously, when will they stop? 
> 
> Also, if you like my stories so far, go ahead and read "Mandokarla", too! It's an in-universe fic and is my favorite work out of all that I have created so far. Anw, enjoy! xx

“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” Finn said, moving the keyboard from Poe’s fingers. 

“Yeah? Tell me where I’m wrong. I know Ren like the back of my hand, it’s easy as pie to think he’d brute his way out of every situation.”

“That,” Finn points a finger at him. “We can’t have that. We want them to get together.”

Poe nods, not comprehending until he looks back at the things they’d listed. And then it clicks. 

“Wait,” Poe says, looking at Finn. “Do you… want us to get them… together?”

“I just told you,” Finn deadpans. Poe is thoughtful, rubbing a hand on his stubble. Finn rolls his eyes after eyeing the sharp, small growing hairs, grumbling about how messy it is even as Poe knows he really likes it during sex. He sets that aside. 

“Why?” He asks instead. “Ren is incorrigible and Rey is a spitfire princess who will stomp every bad boy who so much as  _ breathes  _ beside her.”

“Ren can huff and puff all he wants and Rey is the only one who can match his insufferable personality to a tee. Our lives might even become easier once this is all through. That’s why they’re so perfect. Can’t you see? ” 

Poe does see, slowly nodding as he reads through the list. 

BET LIST 

LEVEL ONE 

_1\. Kiss – POE: within a week aftr date setup / FINN: a day cs ik mah gurl rey likes riding dickkk_

“Really, babe?” Poe says after reading that one. “Really?”

“What? It’s true.” 

_ 2\. Hand-holding/Any kind of PDA, location – POE: probably in the lobby because ren is a big date grabber and likes 2 flex / FINN: prolly a month cs rey doesnt like pda unless its official – under the table action or a hand graze as they leave for after-work coffee  _

Poe frowns at that and when he looks over at Finn, the uncertainty in his face tells him they’re probably thinking the same thing. 

“Why does your bestfriend have to be so emotionally stunted?”

“Whoaaa, hey! Rey is not like that. She’s just being practical.”

“PDA does not mean they’re going to get a June wedding. Ren doesn’t even  _ like  _ the summer.” 

“So? Rey does? They could make it a shotgun thing. Doesn’t scowl-face like sneaking out and being stupid?” 

Poe chortles. “In his defense, everyone would be scowling if Hux was chairing a meeting.” 

Finn concedes and Poe goes further down the list. 

_ 3\. Leia Notices – POE: IMMEDIATELY; ren is terrible at hiding shit / FINN: not rly rey can be rly discreet _

“You clearly don’t know Ben like I do,” Poe says and realizes that as soon as he says it, there was a double entendre there. Finn laughs it off. 

“And you don’t know how well I know Rey. You’ve got no other person on your side here and I don’t either. Stop being so defensive.” 

“Okay, okay,” he says, chuckling and reading again. 

_ 4\. Either party start acting weird – POE: how will we know its fr the hookup? but at least a week, if ren can help it / FINN: rey’s forte is discretion but it aint limitless – one week _

“Hmm. We got similar guesses at that.” 

Finn thinks. “If we’re right, we both give each other the 20. If we both lose, we just junk it and not win anything.”

Poe nods, scribbling that as an additional note. 

“Define ‘weird’?” 

“Hmm, what do you mean define weird? You don’t know what  _ weird  _ is?”

“Yeah, I know what weird is, Mr. Tentacle Porn, I’m just saying — we gotta have some kind of rubric for this. Ren monologuing in the office is weird behavior but how do we know that it’s a weirdness due to direct contact with Rey?”

“Hm, remember when Rose started dropping by my desk for literally everything before she found out we both liked dick?”

“Yeah?”

“ _ That _ weird.”

_ 5\. Non-asshole Ren – POE: hes nvr not one wth so i’d say never, but hes gonna be hella doting to rey and no one else / FINN: a year, tops, ppl change, poe _

“Now I just wanna reiterate that Ren has always been like that. And that, again, this is a sure win for me as everyone knows that Ren is  _ never  _ not an asshole. It’s a good thing he’s good at his job, else the staff would have wheeled him out a long time ago.” 

“His mother has a position on the board, he’ll never be kicked out.”

“And will  _ never  _ not be an asshole.” 

Finn turns his nose up, shaking his head. “People change, Poe. Maybe Ren just needs to be, y’know, appropriately ‘watered’.” 

“Yeah,” Poe laughs, patting Finn’s shoulder. “It’s 2019, you can say Ren needs to get some pussy.” 

Poe peeks at the list one last time. It’s a small betting list. Anyone who wins one of the categories will get a 20. The terms can interconnect, in the event that they coincide, like #4 leading to #3. 

“Only five categories? Is there a _LEVEL TWO: VOYEURISM_ draft you aren’t showing me?” 

“What? No. Not like that. It’s just, they’ve been bickering and fighting like children since forever and I’d just like to list some mildly-possible things.”

“So, you think all of this is may or may not be possible… and maybe more?”

“Yeah, and it’s not like Rey tells me about her sex life or anything. The assumption is always just that I don’t want to know.”

“Hm.” Poe nods. That seems reasonable. “What if I wanna change my bets? If, like, I find clues that point to Ren becoming an actual non-asshole sooner rather than later?”

Finn once more starts thinking rather animatedly, lifting his head up only when he thinks their boss might be patrolling. “Let’s schedule a sort of Change Day? For each category. Like, if we see clues that might point to our bets possibly not being accurate, we assign only one day to change it. And both of us have to agree to what day that’s going to be.”

“Okay, deal.” 

Like parent-trapping children, they simultaneously peek over their monitors, eyeing Rey, Finn’s best and longest friend, bopping to ME! and humming to it, and Kylo Ren, Poe’s best and longest friend who is mumbling something about how stupid Pink Tax is and how religions are only really endless chasms of excuses. 

“Deal,” Finn repeats. 

* * *

Something fishy is going on. 

Rey notices this because of a string of events that have thus happened since the morning she came into office, slightly bedraggled from a lack of sleep courtesy of her little side project. She’s writing a book. Or at least she was when her roommate brought some beer in and the next thing she knew she woke up with a headache. Light filtering into the windows, she bolted up from bed, cursing as she went through her morning routine faster than she ever had in her life. Said roommate has left the building so the scolding that Rey had pent up would have to wait. 

Today, Finn and Poe are looking at her like they’re waiting for her to announce her resignation. And Rose is in on it, too, like she has a more than strong urge to come over and tell her how badly dressed she was today more than usual. When they won’t stop looking, Rey shuffles into the adjacent room of the office, and in the corner of her eyes, she sees Finn trail her form. 

And then she’s colliding with a warm wall. 

“Ow!”

“Watch it, Niima.” 

They say at the same time. She puffs a breath at that. She knows that voice everywhere. Rey meets Ren’s eyes sharply, holding his intense glare and not backing down. 

“Something wrong, Ren?” 

He watches her for another entire second and Rey’s skin prickles, fist clenching. “You tell me. You’re the one running over your co-workers.” 

“I did not run you over. It’s not my fault you have the genes of a tree.” 

Ren grunts at that, eyes squinting down at her. “And it’s not mine if you’re so short you need help sitting on your chair.” 

“I am  _ not  _ short!” 

“And I’m not a  _ tree _ !” 

“You’re insufferable!”

“Hey!” Hux barks, hands on his hips. “If you don’t shut the fuck up at 8 in the morning, I swear to god. Sit down, Miss Niima. Sit down, Ren.” Not unlike a clucking mother hen, Hux moves her to a different station that day, and with Finn sitting beside her, she finally snaps. 

“Can you believe him? Because I can’t! Calling me short. When have I ever been  _ short _ , Finn?!” 

“He’s just tall,” he shrugs. 

“That’s what I said. I can’t get fired from this job because of fucking Kylo Ren. This is too important to me.” 

“Is it, though? You have really shit benefits here.” At that Rey’s eyes go wide, slapping at his hand. When they both look around them, Rose is eyeing them with a slight hint of concern — and miserable camaraderie. There was that, then. She turns back around to Finn. 

“You know what I mean. I need to stay alive in this place.” 

Finn nods, going back to his work. Still huffing, she spots Ren slipping out of the adjacent office door, looking even more pissed. Hux follows behind him somehow looking more pissed than Ren. She watches Ren’s ass saunter to the water cooler, how somehow… tight it is. She looks away. Still angry.

* * *

“You look like shit,” Ren says that afternoon as they caught up at the water cooler. Rey deftly ignores it, placing her mug under the cold water spout with a little more force than necessary. That gets Hux’s attention from his seat so she tries to, very gracelessly, quietly push the spout back. As she’s walking to her desk, she feels Ren’s eyes on her neck. Irritated, she whirls around and Ren stops with ease before they collide again. 

“What?” 

“You look like you went to sleep only an hour ago. Up all night curdling milk, I presume?” 

“No, plotting your death.” 

“Shame. Already beat you to it.”

“With a face like that, I know you look at yourself in the mirror and wish you were dead.” 

“I am dead, alright. Drop-dead gorgeous.” 

“Tell that to the girl you slept with last night — oh wait. You actually  _ didn’t  _ get laid. Because if you did, you would come to work at least an hour late, carrying a raincloud over your head around the office.” 

That somehow gets him to shut up, although when Rey really analyzes why she stops short. 

“You’re certainly watching me.” He says after a beat, looking… Rey doesn’t know that look so she just crosses her arms. 

“What do you want from me, Ren?” 

“You write confusing articles.” 

“What?”

“I can’t understand them. So write them better so I can very well make an actual graphic about them.” 

“It’s not my fault you don’t know how to read.” 

He inhales sharply at that, eyes hard as steel staring her down as he brings his mug to his lips instead. Rey keeps at it. She will not be cowed. Not by this brute of a man, even though he has all that hair, all that lip, and all the intensity that god hath provided. Such a shame they have to be so connected to a miserable oaf of a man. 

“Just show me and let’s get this over with, please.” 

“Right this way, Niima,” he mutters, still looking at her. 

* * *

After work on a Saturday, Finn asks to meet her for coffee at Starbucks. It’s a branch that’s a little further from her apartment and seated smack dab in the middle of a small clinic and a Japanese restaurant she also used to frequent. Finn waves at her from where she’s sitting, wearing a wide smile that she can’t help but mirror, albeit hers is of the soft variety. When she sits, Finn immediately asks her why there were more layers to her baggy eyes than before — and then he’s asking her to do something she would only ever consider doing when pigs can finally take flight. 

“No. Absolutely not — you brought me over here to ask me to sleep with Ren?”

Finn winces at that, hurriedly shaking his hands and setting his coffee down. “No! No, Rey. I suggested you go on a date with him and see where it goes, you know. You don’t have to sleep with him. It’s just, Poe and I thought that maybe… maybe you two could acknowledge that there’s something more… sensual, about your back and forth.” 

“Sensual?!” She says, incredulous. Half the store is already looking at them but Rey doesn’t care. “You and Poe? Really? You’re going to rely on the office gigolo for information on who to matchmake?”

“First off, Poe is not a gigolo, not that he won’t keel over laughing at that insult and sidle up to Holdo just for the hell of it—” Rey groans low but Finn soldiers on. “Second, Rey, you know the line between love and hate is practically threadbare and it’s not like people can’t possibly see how much you two look at each other on a daily basis.” 

“We look at each other because we hate each other. That’s what you do when you hate them, Finn, you let them know through your eyes.” 

“Really? Paige  _ hates  _ Snap, so much so that Paige waits an entire hour during lunch to have hers in the pantry because Snap always eats at the same time every day. In meetings, Paige sits still when Snap talks and takes notes and leaves casually in the middle of it all and doesn’t come back — she should probably stop that, though. I don’t want her to get fired — but anyway. Don’t you understand what I’m saying?” 

Rey grapples for words. “He’s already there when I get there! I get to the pantry to eat and he’s already there, standing by the microwave and looking at me until his food dings! That’s not my fault!” 

“Rey, you purposefully sauntered over to his table one office Christmas party at the bar and asked him why his hair looked stupid—”

“An accident.” 

“—and you were most definitely  _ sober  _ then because we all know you start weeping instantly when you’ve had a little too much to drink.” 

Taken aback, Rey sits back, thinking about that night. She chews her lip. She…. did. She did walk up to him then, struck a conversation about his hair and proceeded to, she now knows, make a fool of herself. So that’s why his table erupted in quiet chuckles. But Kylo had only softly told her that perhaps she was drunk and that it was the only reason she was antagonizing him. Maybe that was why she thinks she’d been drunk, his hand placed gently on the small of her back as he led her immediately back to Finn’s side. 

Coming back from her reverie, Finn raises an eyebrow at her, no doubt recognizing the slow realization on her face. 

“You’re attracted to this guy, Rey, just admit it.” 

Finn says although Rey catches on a tone of mild hesitation underlying it all. It’s all she needs to get suspicious. She leans in slowly, keeping her eyes on him the entire time. He fidgets and Rey knows she’s got him. Her bestfriend really never knew how to keep a secret. 

“There’s something going on here.” She says, tilting her head. “Something you wanna tell me, Finn Storm?” 

For a moment, Finn looks at her like he’s considering what he’s about to say next. Then, he’s standing up and Rey follows him with her eyes. “Nothing is going on, Rey. Admit it to make it easier.” 

But Rey will not admit. Not until she finds out what’s going on. 

* * *

Rey keeps an eye out for Finn and Poe the next week and catalogs her findings in a tiny notebook she’d found discarded in her junk drawer. 

On Monday, Finn and Poe came to work together like always, but they were fussing around Finn’s phone over something. They talked about the phone by the water cooler before the Hux clocked in, giggling like school girls. But Poe did not  _ giggle _ ; he laughed, he guffawed, but he did not  _ giggle _ .

On Tuesday, Rey was invited by Finn to get lunch downstairs. His phone kept flashing and every time he’d look at it, he’d start grinning. When she jovially asked what he was reading offhandedly, his face twisted in unconscious defensiveness, mumbling about how it was just Poe fooling around in the Men’s Room sending him nudes. 

But Finn had a strict No Nudes In The Office rule. 

On Wednesday, Poe was notably absent, but he called around lunch and Finn stayed in his seat, glancing at her and Kylo in between forkfuls of lasagna and then opening and closing his mouth to speak into the receiver. Rey was only able to observe that for a short while because Hux had once again switched her a station because the internet was on the fritz. 

On Thursday, Poe was back hanging out with Kylo and Kylo — being Kylo — was suspicious of that. They had a massive fight two months ago when Poe accidentally slept with the girl Kylo had been seeing and the whole office knew the wound hasn’t healed yet. 

And  _ still _ , Poe is plunging into the belly of the beast. 

On Friday, Finn and Poe looked at her for far too long when Hux was giving her and Kylo a dressing down about office etiquette, and when she came back, Finn asked her what happened. She told them and Poe waved off Hux’s command to go back to his station like it was the easiest thing in the world — defying their  _ boss _ . 

Something was definitely up.

* * *

Finn and Poe leave early Wednesday the following week. Finn had asked her if she wanted to leave with them but she declined, citing that she had a lot of unfinished stuff she still needed to write. 

When they had gone, Rey peeks over the divider to stupid Kylo Ren in his station with his beautifully stupid hair in a stupid man-bun and waits for him to regard her. He doesn’t, though, too busy with what he’s doing but he acknowledges her with a slow and deep rumble. “What?” 

“Something’s up.” 

“Up.” Kylo repeats, the only sound between them the click of his mouse. 

“Yeah, with Finn and Poe.” That gets him to look up, one thick brow raising and waiting for her to explain. She blinks at his stupid lips and clears her throat. She fishes her notepad sitting on the side of the keyboard and brandishes it open. Eyeing the office for Hux, she turns back to Kylo. 

“On Monday,” she begins. “Finn and Poe were laughing at something on Finn’s phone.” 

“Technology has taken over our lives, Niima. That doesn’t mean something is up—”

“Shut up. Tuesday, Finn says Poe sent him nudes while we were at lunch even though everyone knows Finn always talks about his No Nudes policy in the office.” 

Kylo breathes in at that moment, annoyance still sketched in his stupidly handsome face. Stupid, Rey thinks. “Poe has been known to flaunt the rules.” 

“But he talked to you. Thursday. Even after that stunt he pulled. Don’t you find that a bit odd?” Kylo stops at that, staring back at his computer screen for a solid minute before looking up. 

“Say you are onto something, how are you going to prove it?” 

“Come here.” 

They both freeze at the command and Rey thinks Kylo’s throat bobbed at the way she said it. But she shrugs it off, anyway, he’s just probably not used to interactions with her. That’s fine; she’s not used to it either. Rey waits for him to circle around the office as she’s firing up Finn’s computer. They have the same password for every station, thankfully, and she gets through that barrier easily. 

Kylo studies the screen beside her, looking down on it from his high nose. Rey resists the urge to look up at him and watch the way his biceps flex when he crosses his arms. 

“This is his company computer. I doubt he’d put something in there that the admin can have direct access to.” 

“Shush. He’s got a secret folder in here somewhere. He’d showed me once when he admitted to tallying the criteria of the men I went out with on Tinder dates. I tell him everything and he entertains himself by putting everything on notepads” 

He snorts. “Of course he’s  _ that  _ kind of friend.” 

“Could you shut up for one second and just let me think?” 

Finally, she opens a folder nestled amongst folders of graphics from when the writers had to make them to help the graphics team. She sees one notepad file she knows is Finn’s quasi-diary where he writes his frustrations down while he’s at work so he isn’t caught not working. And then a notepad file she’s not seen before. 

Kylo leans in at that, placing one massive hand on the table beside her and frowns at the file name. 

“‘Bet List?’ What’s that?” 

“I don’t know,” she says, trying to swim out of the sea of Ben’s fragrance. Stupid man smelling stupid. She opens the file so she doesn’t have to think about being so close to Kylo anymore — until she actually  _ opens  _ the file.

_ Kiss, _ she reads first and nearly chokes on her spit.  _ Hand-holding.  _

“Non-asshole Ren?” Kylo repeats, eyebrows knotting. “I am not an asshole.” 

“Sure, Jan.” 

“I’m not. You’re all just sensitive. That’s not my fault.” 

But Rey continues reading on, blushing deeply when she reads  _ ‘rey likes riding dickkk’ _ . Kylo has probably read it, too, because he suddenly pulls back and starts clearing his throat. Hux finally peeks from his spot in the office and eyes them sternly. Kylo issues a quick response. 

“She’s just showing me something on her article that I don’t understand.” And it all comes out weird. Rey winces and looks at Hux before flashing Ren a murderous glare when the redhead has gone back to his own monitor. 

“Thanks, King Obvious.” 

“So, you’re right Niima. But we can just ignore it. Wipe his recents and let’s just leave it alone.” 

“No,” she thinks, mind already bent on revenge. “No, let’s Poe Dameron this sitch. Let’s flaunt the rules.” 

Visibly taken aback, Ren shifts his weight on one hip, crossing his arms again. “What are you talking about?” 

“They say we’ll kiss in about a week.”

“Finn says it’ll be in a day.” 

“Whatever. And they mention a hookup here, so I assume they’re going to pair us up on a date or something after payday.” 

Kylo studies her. “Is that why Poe dragged me to Starbucks at 5 in the morning to tell me I’m attracted to you?” 

“Really? Finn did that with me, too.” Rey chews her lip. “Let’s beat them at their own game.” 

“What do you suggest?” 

“If they’re so convinced there’s some kind of sexual tension here, let’s give them enough juice to think there is. And then pull the rug out from under their feet by suddenly ignoring each other on their D-Day bets. That way, they don’t win anything from each other at all, we get to truly mess with them, and then we don’t have to worry about co-workers predicting when we’d sleep with each other.” 

They stare at each other for a long time and Rey thinks maybe Kylo is either not breathing or breathing too hard but he’s hiding it because Hux might peep out again and say something about office etiquette. 

“Let’s do it,” Kylo says.


	2. Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dressing up, a fancy restaurant, and Ren's gorgeous car.

Sure enough, as payday rolls around Finn starts giving her hints and she pretends like it’s just rolling around her, like she’s not seen the Bet List yet. Even the days leading up to payday Finn was already badgering her about dating, and she was right in assuming that it was all a week-long lead in to casually suggest to her again that maybe she and Kylo could get it over with and date. 

So, she says yes and Finn’s jaw practically drops to the floor. She wishes she could have taken a picture of it and sent it to Ren. 

* * *

The plan was, according to Finn and Poe, to hook them up for a date and then observe their behavior from there, keeping a discreet eye out for them around the office. _Their_ plan was to make sure something came out of the date. Before going to the announced chosen restaurant, Rey had thought maybe she and Ren could just skip out and pretend to have gone on the date and begin on their journey of epically messing with their meddling friends. 

Come Monday the week after payday, though, Rey realized they were no dice on that one. Because not only was Poe Dameron excited about seeing a non-antagonistic version of the Niima-Ren tandem interacting outside their natural habitat, but he was excited enough that he had insisted Finn they should all go on a double date. 

Which, as Rey picks through a bag of chips, makes some kind of sense. 

The best way to make sure that your friends hook up for real is to be there with them. Or at least, make sure that all that betting doesn’t go to waste. 

What she finds and feels odd, though, was how quickly Ren had agreed when she suggested exchanging numbers so they could update each other about the stupid new add-ons the two will most definitely splice into the original plan. It’s odd because of either one of two things: 1) this means that they might not be as antagonistic as they realize, and 2) Finn and Poe might be right. 

But all evidence points otherwise, she insists to herself. Rey and Ren are not like that. They don’t just see each other that way. Ever since Rey first got her job at the place, he’d looked at her strangely and proceeded to escape and ignore every effort she’d made to make friends with him. Eventually, and without her noticing, their stare-downs became icier, their exchanged barbs more filled with vitriol, and their interactions not unlike two planets colliding. 

She feels bad for the rest of the office, of course. Feels bad for the push-pull dynamic she and Ren have. Yes, even for Hux. He’s just doing his job after all. 

It’s amazing Hux still hasn’t thrown her out the door because of her and Ren’s behavior. So, at least she was thankful for that. She can’t say the same for Ren, though, if he feels bad at all or if he’s just that selfish. 

As if she’d summoned him, her phone screen flashes his name back at her when she picks it up. His text reads: _Dameron wants us to dress up._

<Rey>

dress up? prolly. it’s a date, genius. 

<Big Stupid Moron>

_In formal wear — you in an actual pretty dress and me in a tuxedo._

<Rey>

that doesnt sound right. finn wouldnt suggest a fancy restaurant. 

<Big Stupid Moron>

_…_

_Are you implying that I’m lying?_

<Rey>

u tell me. ur the one that came to that conclusion

<Big Stupid Moron>

_Goodnight, Niima._

<Rey>

w8, which restaurant? 

<Big Stupid Moron>

_Chandrila Garden._

<Rey>

huh. k c u there 

<Big Stupid Moron>

_Do you have a dress?_

<Rey>

what do u mean do i hv a dress? of course i hv a dress.

<Big Stupid Moron>

_Something bought within this decade?_

“What a fucking _ass_ ,” she grumbles, nearly throwing her phone across the room when she is struck by the paranoia that there might not be — she shrugs — a dress in her closet bought within the last decade. Sluggishly, she trudges to her closet, not really in the mood to think about her obvious lack of shopping skills. She has all the clothes she needs, thank you very much, there’s not much need for dress-up when you’re glued to both your desk and your computer for eight straight hours, though. So, maybe, yes, no dress in here bought in the last decade. 

She thinks about rummaging in her closet or making herself a new, uglier one just to spite Ren. But she knows she and Ren have to keep up appearances so she diligently digs in her closet well into the night. 

By the time she had finished, she found that she had three dresses. The first one is a polka-dotted monstrosity she’s sure she bought out of irony. The second one was more of a baggy shirt from the men’s section. Looking closely she confirms it truly is, _Star Wars_ pattern on the front against a black backdrop. 

The third one could almost be a beautiful slip dress in its past life if it hadn’t been for Mrs. Watson’s cat Griffin scratching up a storm on it. She doesn’t remember why she’d kept it but as she’s holding it in her hands, she sees that the storm that has been scratched is just sitting on the edge of the dress. It’s sizeable damage but when she pressed the dress down against her chest, she saw that the dress reached past her thighs and that there’s just about an inch of cat scratches from the hem. 

Nothing a good hand-rolled hem couldn’t fix. Plus, if she stitches it a little messily, she’ll just say that adds character. 

Rey doesn’t know why she has to but maybe she just wants to rub it in his face. 

She shoots him a response: i hv 1 now. 

<Big Stupid Moron>

_Good._

He responds like she needs his approval. Turning her nose, she ignores the message and starts sewing. 

* * *

The restaurant is a beautiful establishment with an actual fountain on the front just _because_ , Rey thinks. She’d turned down Ren’s invitation to take her to the restaurant and insisted she gets there for the 10-minute wait first, saying that she’d already told Finn and Poe she was coming early. They’d agreed, of course, since she supposes they still couldn’t believe that she (or Ren) would even agree to the date. She gets lead into the waiting area and gets asked her coat. She gives it easily and grabs onto her purse, the restaurant warm and cozy enough for her bare shoulders. 

Finn had already texted her that he and Poe were on the way, and in turn, she had shot back that the hostess had told her that she would have to wait a couple of minutes so there was no rush for them to get there. 

The truth is, she’s trying to dispel the nervous energy in her bones. When Finn and Poe had said they would put Ren and her on a date, she’d thought they’d ask for a booth at some bar and pay enough money so she and Ren could drink as many and as much as they wanted. 

This was, of course, before Ren had shot her a text on the fine-dining activity that she will be doing for tonight, a legitimately new experience for her since she only ever eats for sustenance, not for carpeted floors or “silent service codes.” She’d struggled to understand that last tidbit of information when she looked up how not to act in a fancy restaurant and had just resorted to pumping her eyebrows enough some time in the middle of dinner to alert either Finn or Poe that she already wanted the night over. 

She kept hitting a wall on that note, because she would have to weather this storm to sell the idea that she and Ren are just on the brink of really getting cozy after this date, even if they act antagonistically at the actual date. So, she sucks it up and sits up straight, the soft silky fabric moving against her skin. 

After a solid minute, she spots a tall, dark figure talking to the hostess and stands up out of sheer nervousness. When she does, though, her eyes meet Ren’s and she doesn’t miss the way his eyes slowly move up and down her form. It makes her shiver. The restaurant is very warm. 

And so are those eyes.

“Right this way, sir. Is Miss Niima part of your party?” The hostess asks and Ren’s eyes never leave hers. She’s no longer looking at him, though, casually leaning her neck off to one side and standing straight. A pride blooms in her chest when he coughs slightly in his hand and mutters an equally nervous ‘yes’. 

Well, at least she isn’t alone in this feeling. 

She looks over and sees Ren hand over a bottle of wine to the hostess. Her blue eyes study the label as she seems to test the weight in her hands. She then looks up, eyes shining, but Ren could care less. “This is an excellent choice, sir.” 

“Thanks,” he simply says and gestures his hand for Rey to sit back down. 

Suddenly, she’s all too aware of the fact that she’d forgone wearing any sort of nipple protection tonight. Not even pasties or a tube bra to accommodate her small mounds. At the time, it had simply been muscle memory. Rey had not much need for support there ordinarily, they’re not as perky either so it’s not a problem. Except, for some reason, now they are. It is a very glaring problem that even she can see how said cursed nipples are pushing against the fabric. To his credit, Ren doesn’t let his eyes wander too indulgently below her neck and keeps his face impassive as he stares forward. 

The way he’s sitting reminds her of awkward teenage boys sitting with their crushes for the first time by the bleachers. A traitorous part of her mind pretends he is, and that she’s the pretty queen bee he’d been crushing hard on for the past few years of his teenage life. 

Eventually, he clears his throat. “You look, uh, you look… amazing.” 

“Thank you,” is her breathy response. It shocks both of them how soft she sounds and he doesn’t miss the way he leans in a little unconsciously before he’s pulling back, staring down at his absurdly proportionally large feet as a slight blush creeps up the back of his neck. She wonders what else is proportional. 

Oh no. 

That makes her… feel things. 

No, this is not the point of this exercise. They have to both act sufficiently embarrassed by this date so as not to draw suspicion, but they also have to act the same way they do in the office at the same time. The phrase that comes to mind is mildly-antagonistic. Which, okay, Rey doesn’t know how to do now that he’d just dropped a very sincere, very blushy compliment her way. She thinks if they gravitate towards insulting barbs, then Finn and Poe might already know they had it coming. 

“You found a dress, I see,” he starts to say after a while, and Rey is a little relieved she can latch onto that and turn it sour. Honestly, he may have even been right on that ‘curdling milk’ barb. 

“Joke’s on you, this was actually bought about a decade ago, but I had killer sewing skills and am therefore able to fix it up neatly.” 

Kylo scoffs with the trace of a mischievous smirk on his pillowed lips. “Do you really not grow tall enough that all your ten-year-old outfits still fit so well on you?” 

“I don’t have to grow tall,” she counters, tilting her head at him. “You just have to make sure to see me eye-to-eye.” 

“Are you saying I should bow down?” He says, voice dropping and face hovering a few inches from her. It presses a need in her to meet him head-on, so she squares her shoulders and jabs a finger at his chest. 

“You already do grandpa, look how you slouch for me.” Her voice syrupy and her eyes glinting with mischief. He likes that, she supposes, because he mimics her smile. 

“Only because I can’t see you clearly from this height—”

Someone is snapping their fingers at them. 

Rey and Ren jolt away when Poe appears into view, smiling so knowingly that Rey wishes she was not Finn’s boyfriend so she could deck him then and there. Ren, she sees at the corner of her eyes, is blushing madly again, looking away. Finn is talking with the hostess who then escorts them to a table. 

As they get seated, she valiantly does her best to ignore Ren only enough that she could collect herself. Once the nerves of earlier had died down and the way Ren absolutely looked at her like it would be a crime to look anywhere else, she clears her throat. 

“So,” she says and she spots Finn’s eye twitch a bit. He probably did not expect this to go this far, maybe he expected to persuade and badger her some more and get her to agree in a couple of days. “A double date, huh. Isn’t that right, Ren?” 

Ren, it seems, at least gets the mildly-antagonistic memo. 

“What’s this about Rey and I having all this sexual tension?” He grinds hard on those last two words and it puts Poe on the spot first. The other man clears his throat. 

“Yes, well. We thought we’d maybe help you kind of, see, what other people see about you two. Kind of an outside looking in situation.” 

“You’re waxing poetic about _introspection_ now? The man who lives in the moment?” Kylo says. 

“Don’t you think this is such a waste of your time, though? Ren and I hate each other,” she says, throwing a glance at Ren. He’s not looking at her but his secret smile gives her a mischievous flare in her gut. And Finn’s uneasy expression fuels her and Ren’s faux pas at antagonistic humor. 

“No one looks as _positively_ gorgeous as Rey in a garbage bag.”

“And Ren looking so dapper in clothes befitting such a demonic personality.” 

“How the hell are you going to call me demonic, Niima, when you’re the one who looks like you rolled out of nine levels of hell before going to work?”

“And yet, you _still_ look my way.”

“There was too much sage wisping in the air that day that I just _had_ to make sure it was working—“ 

“Okay, enough,” Finn says and Rey tries not to look so pleased. “Let’s just eat.” 

So they do. Poe orders something for everyone as Rey and Ren throw murderous glares every time their hands brush. She schools her scowl so she looks like she would rather not be here at the moment. And when Rey reaches over to snatch the salt and pepper on Ren’s side of the table, he swats her hand away with his massive one. 

The pepper clatters loudly on the table. 

“Don’t be such a baby, Ren.” 

“You could have just asked me to hand it to you.” He counters easy, dabbing his napkin on his stupidly soft-looking lips with a grace she knows she doesn’t have. 

“Don’t think you’d be able to, though, with all that stick up your ass.” 

“You little—“

“Why don’t—“ Poe interjects suddenly, breathing through his nose. “Why don’t we start this conversation again and talk about our interests and hobbies?” He tries, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Interests?”

“Hobbies?” 

Rey and Kylo mutter questioningly at the same time. Finn facepalms. 

“I’ll start.” Poe soldiers on because he’s Poe Dameron, digger of deeper holes. “I like watching Netflix while I crochet Beebee some sweaters he never wears. Hm. Now you, babe.” 

“I, uhh. I like to write my thoughts down when I can’t say them.” 

“Why don’t you just say them?” Kylo asks, picking at his plate. “Damn what other people say.” 

Rey snorts. “Really? Don’t take advice from this absolute _people person_ , Finn.”

“In my opinion, people feel too damn much. It would be easier to live in this world without fucking crybabies.” 

“How very rich, coming from you.” Rey throws back. Ren leans forward in her direction, eyes hard and big hands gripping his cutlery tight. She lifts a brow in challenge, unfazed. 

“What, you’re going to stab me? You’re going to have to do better than that, honestly.” She eases out of the tension-filled staredown and throws another passive glare at Poe and Finn. 

“Can we just wrap this up?” She asks. 

Finn visibly hesitates and Poe places a hand on his arm. “Ren? Hobbies? Go.” 

“Not hang out with any of you, for starters.” He pointed a thick finger at Rey’s face like he’s some _overgrown child._ “Or you.” 

“The feeling is mutual,” she smarms back. “My hobbies are making sure Ren knows I would gladly strangle him to death if I catch him slipping.” 

“Killing jokes are _tired_ , Niima. Is there anything in your millennial humor arsenal that’s even the least bit original?” 

“I’m going to take a breather,” Poe announces to the table, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“And I’m going to the restroom!” Rey huffs, stalking in the direction of the restrooms with such purpose. Behind her, Finn grips Poe’s arm like a vice. 

“You’re leaving me with Ren?!” He whispers frantically. 

“You can handle it, babe.” 

* * *

The signs come later when Poe finally comes back. She knows this because she knows Poe feels extremely gutted when he sees he’s badly miscalculated something. Which is ironic, to say the least, because he is also the one who always jumps headfirst into something out of impulse. Then, Rey knows that the battle (at least for Finn and Poe) is won when Finn blatantly just apologizes for what happened.

No matter what, Finn is a certain stickler for his own rules, and it’s the reason why he usually finds solace when there is something to guide him. Now, Poe without a fiery pit to jump in and Finn circling back after his mistake, Rey tries not to let it show that she’s relieved that much. After all, the _real_ game only begins right now. 

When she tells Kylo as much, he frowns, furrowing his brow as she’s squeezing herself into his beautiful car. She looks around and ignores his face, wondering how on earth a graphic artist on a shitty company can own something so expensive. She meets his eyes finally and she doesn’t miss the way that his honeyed orbs drop down to the neckline of her dress. 

He clears his throat again. Hm. Nervous tick. “Niima, what are you doing here? The dinner was over five minutes ago.” 

“What am I doing here?” She says. “Phase One just finished, weirdo. Now it’s time for Phase Two.” 

Kylo’s brow lifts. “You’ve planned ahead enough for a Phase Two?”

“Yeah,” she replies in a pitched voice. “You’re acting like you didn’t agree to this in the first place.” 

“But we don’t have to, anymore. Storm apologized already.”

“Listen to me, this’ll be a once in a lifetime opportunity to mess with our friends for real.”

“I’m not sure I want to go that far.” 

“Think about Natasha, Ren. How you could still be dating right now if it weren’t for Poe.” 

He inhales sharply at that so she must have struck a nerve. When he moves next, he’s pulling his coat off and running his hands through his gorgeous raven locks. Rey almost stops breathing when he rolls his sleeves up, places one hand on the steering wheel and turns to her. Mentally shaking her head, she keeps a watchful eye on him. 

“Natasha was… a loss, to be sure. So I’m listening Niima.” 

“Alright. I was thinking we should probably set some boundaries.” Rey announces, patting down the hem of her silk slip dress when it starts to ride up as she’s adjusting her sitting position. She’d managed to sit on her coat as she wriggled inside the car and had been too lazy to take it out from under her. As she fishes for her phone in her purse, she misses the way Ren’s eyes caress her tanned long legs. 

“See, on the ‘Kiss’, Finn says I’d just drop everything and kiss you in one day. And Poe said it’ll be at least a week for any of us to actually kiss, regardless of who starts.” She peeks up at him through her lashes. “What do you want to do?” 

“...I don’t know.” 

“I don’t mind the kissing—“

“Are you really suggesting _that?”_

Rey scoffs, laughing at his scandalized face. “What, are you some sort of virgin? Would it be the worst thing in the world to kiss me?” She asks before she realizes. It was supposed to be a funny jibe, but now it only charges the air around them and turns them both beet red. 

“I meant,” Rey tries. “I meant… you know what I meant! I’m just saying, we could not just kiss or we could, you know. After the one week period. But it would be more mind-fucking for them if we suddenly kiss a week after their prediction and we just act all antagonistic leading to that day.” 

“I’m not kissing you for that,” he says after a while, one hand coming to stroke his hair again. 

“Ren, come on. It’s not a big deal. It’s just a kiss.” 

“In the office? No, Niima.” 

“What’s so wrong with it? Nora and Wedge kiss in the office all the time—“

“They’re _married.”_

“It’s not like I’m asking you to marry me, I’m just saying it’ll be more fun to—“ and then that cuts off because the next thing she knows she’s turning her head in his direction when his hand suddenly cups the back of her neck and pulls her close to him — directly against those decadent lips. 

Her fingers tremble for a second and the angle is awkward and his fingers are a little tight on her skin and his breath smells like the wine he brought and — it all makes Rey so dizzy. 

Every stroke of his lips, she’d meet. And for each lick of his warm wet tongue, she’s there to match it. It doesn’t take long until they’re eating each other’s faces. Rey doesn’t even remember what they were talking about because she’s tugging him closer by the buttons of his dress shirt, crushing the fabric in her fingertips when Ren tilts his head and swipes his tongue on her lower lip before slipping it back inside. It’s gross. It should be so gross. Instead, she leans in for more, buoyed by confidence and — she now realizes — that _wine_ , to carefully move past the center console and climb into his lap. 

Ren’s hands still lay fisted beside him, scared to truly touch her, but her fingers seem not to care, alighting on his jaw, rubbing his slight stubble, nails lightly grazing against the side of his face. Ren shivers, groaning when she subconsciously wiggles her lower body closer — and jerks an elbow back accidentally that it hits the car horn. 

At that, they finally jolt away from each other — and the reality of what had just happened has now been revealed to them and the neighborhood. She sees Kylo’s eyes dilated, lips pinker than usual and hair so sexily tousled. 

Oh no. 

No one talks for the next few minutes, as they sat motionless after what just happened. 

And then Rey is scrambling for the passenger seat, hitting her feet a little on the console so that when she presses her thighs together and makes herself small on the leather upholstery, her feet sting a little. 

Kylo releases a shaky breath and it takes all the self-control and level-headedness in Rey to not viscerally react to the tension their kiss brought on both of them. 

After that, Kylo asks her where she lives because then it starts to drizzle. She tells herself she obliges only because she’s wearing heels and she would rather not have a wet foot-to-the-pavement moment that even her pride won’t think of entertaining right now. 

Deep down, she’s looking at the way he grips the steering wheel, the different way that he’s suddenly breathing as her mind goes into the traitorous thought of Kylo’s deliciously thick fingers warm and supporting on her bare torso.

Rey leaves his car without so much as a goodbye and ignores the burning sensation of his stare on the back of her head. 

There is sexual tension there, but revenge will still be sweeter if she actually does it. That was a mistake, a glitch in the simulation of this whole thing, and once this is over, in the grand scheme of things, this will be a story they will just be able to laugh at. 

_“Hey, do you remember that one time Ren and Rey kissed at the office just to mess with Poe and Finn?”_

_“Yo, that was funny as fuck!”_

_“Good times.”_

They will deliberately sidestep what just happened though. It was nothing more than a mistake. 


	3. Hand-Holding/Any Kind of PDA, Location

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phase Two, a double agent, and a little shake-up.

This is all a huge mistake. 

A huge. 

Huge. 

Huge. 

Mistake. 

He’s a fucking idiot for even agreeing and even more of a fucking idiot for standing in front of his sink looking into his crazed eyes. Eyes he’d shut when he finally kissed her, eyes that trailed across her body, her arms, her collarbones, her  _ legs  _ all night when neither she nor Finn nor Poe were looking. What part of him, exactly, was active when she suggested Poe Dameron-ing this sitch?  _ What, Ren? _ He asked to Mirror-Ren.  _ What the fuck were you thinking?  _

All that talk about Natasha, too, a girl whose face he can no longer remember because all he’d been able to think about was Rey. 

Now he is, so he guesses he got what he asked for. But not this way, he curses, trying and failing to dispel thoughts of tanned thighs bracketing his hips, of sun-kissed cheeks pinking seconds before their lips were colliding. She’d trembled in his lap, too, and the sharp points of her nipples against her black silky  _ slip  _ of a dress drove him into insanity as he’d felt them straining against her dress — and eventually against him when she pressed herself close on his chest. 

He’d been hard as a rock right after, hazy and dizzy and wanting more. Thankfully, she’d pressed the car horn; thankfully, she’d managed to do so before she felt his erect cock against the apex of her thighs before it could have all went to shit. 

When he stormed into his house, taking the coldest shower in his life had been the best idea. But now, as he tugs his cock and watches with bleary eyes as his spend disappears into the drain, he realizes everything had been a mistake. 

He’d bitten off more than he can chew. And he was sure Rey was not going to let go of Phase Two. 

This is all a huge mistake. 

* * *

“Told you it wouldn’t work,” Poe says that morning, dejectedly, as they both leave for work. 

“I’m sorry, I thought maybe they’d be able to see it,” Finn replies, covering his face in shame. 

“I told you Ren was born an asshole.”

“I know.” 

“And Rey was emotionally stunted.” 

“I  _ know. _ ”

* * *

Despite the churning feeling of dread in his stomach that day, he finds that it actually isn’t as hard to go through with Phase Two. Sure, he’d nearly jumped out of his skin when Rey texted that night like  _ nothing fucking happened, _ but he knew her well enough now to know that Rey’s go-to tactic with dealing with confusing situations was not to deal with them at all. 

<Niima>

_ phase 2 is we act all lovey dovey wo quite getting there. no holding hands. no skinship. just sexy stares and nothing else.  _

_ finn will lose his SHIT  _

  
  


She’d texted and he’d sighed so heavily he thought maybe he was going to puncture his own lungs. 

  
  


<Kylo Ren>

Are you sure that’s the best idea? 

<Niima>

_ absolutely. dyou know when finn first found out darth vader was luke skywalkers father? didnt talk to me for DAYS  _

_ idk y im telling u that _

_ anw _

_ hes going to really lose it _

  
  


He’d sighed again, something he now realizes he might be doing throughout this whole arrangement. 

  
  


<Kylo Ren>

Fine. Hard limits? 

<Niima>

_ what r u? christian grey? am i gonna call u daddy now? _

_ daddy? _

  
  


Kylo inhaled sharply, steadfastly ignoring the full-body shiver that text alone gave him. This is such a dangerous, stupid game. 

  
  


<Kylo Ren>

Niima, focus. No holding hands, skinship, what else?

<Niima>

_ we could uhh  _

_ touch each others hair? _

_ all like _

_ affectionate-like _

<Kylo Ren>

“Affectionate-like”? You know that’s not a word. 

<Niima>

_ whtver. i think rose knows smth abt this, not sure. just dont blow our cover. _

  
  


_ Don’t blow our cover. _ So here he was, watching from the corner of his eyes as Rey fingers the errant locks of hair in front of his face. It takes everything in him not to just live in this moment with her, but it’s a beautiful moment tarnished every time she asks, “Are they looking?” or says, “Finn has to be internally freaking out right now, I just know it.” So, he remembers what this all is and nails that in his mind, slips into character, and ever so slowly leans in her personal space. 

“He’s looking… frazzled, that’s for sure.” He says, deducing as best he can Finn’s expression from where they’re standing at the water cooler. 

Her resulting smirk makes him feel things but he refuses to acknowledge them. “Is his eye twitching?” She asks again. 

“A little. Dameron looks like he’s not sure why he didn’t win the lottery even if it’s all his name in the fishbowl.” 

She giggles lightly and that was when Hux decided to show up for work, looking puzzled when he passed them by. 

“Hi.” Rey just says. 

* * *

By lunch, Rey watches discreetly as Finn and Poe somehow leave frantically together for lunch, smirking to herself. 

* * *

“What the  _ fuck  _ is going on?” Poe stage-whispers, and Finn wants so badly to have the answers right now but he doesn’t. All he can say is, “I don’t fucking know.” 

“Why is Rey… all over Ren? What the fuck? Did you put her up to this? What the fuck—“

“What?! No! I haven’t even talked to her about Ren after the date. It’s not like I planted that idea in her head when we left! You must have done it with Ren!” 

“Are you a moron? The guy won’t even talk to me!” 

“You came to him that Thursday. And you said he went with you to Starbucks!” 

“I just told him what you told Rey. And he hated it.” 

“So what the fuck,” Finn grits his teeth, poking a finger on the glass case of the food he wants to order at the cafeteria. “Are we going to do?” 

“They want to play?” Poe asks, also poking a finger to pick his lunch. “Let’s fucking play, then.” 

* * *

Finn and Poe discussed in the slightly more private adjacent room. A few minutes after lunch and before they came back to work, they revisited the Bet List. 

“Do you want to make this the Change Day?” 

“I’ll stick with my guess. You?” 

“I’d say in two or three days.” 

“From now?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright.” They shake hands. 

“Where are you stationed?” Poe asks, peeking over his shoulder in case Hux notices they’re not at their stations. 

“I’m still beside Rey.”

“You’re going to have to keep a close eye, alright. We’re starting at the ‘Kiss’ alright? Look for any signs.”

“Do you want to let it interconnect with the second one?” 

Poe chews on his lip. “Yeah, why not?” 

* * *

Rey closes the door stiffly, crossing her arms. “I know you know what Finn and Poe are up to. So tell me.” 

She almost feels bad when Rose flinches, when her eyes fall on the restroom door that she’s now closed. Someone on the other side had complained about the closed door but Rey just resolutely shouted at them to “Shut up.” 

Like she’s testing her luck, Rose slowly moves to the sink, almost too carefully washing her fingers. But Rey isn’t having it. 

“Rose.” She says like a warning. 

“Okay,” Rose replies, putting her hands on her hips even if they’re still slightly dripping water. “How much do you know exactly?”

“I know about the Bet List.” 

“Then what do you need me for?” 

“I want to know if the bets have changed. I get the feeling they’re at it again, based on the way Finn can’t help but keep an eye out for Ren around the office.” 

Rose remains quiet, moving to the sinks again. 

“What do I get from this?” Rose asks. Rey blinks. 

“What?”

“If I spy on them for you, what do I get? And what do  _ you  _ get from this?” 

Rey chews her lips in thought. “I’ll make an article each day for you until we finish all the Bet List categories.” 

“I’m on a different website from you. You work on human research and I’m in tech.” 

“I can handle that,” Rey replies easy, not thinking about it too much. 

“You’ll cover for my longer articles?”

“Yeah, sure. So will you spy on them for me now?” 

“What do  _ you  _ get from this?” 

“Revenge, duh.” She says but a small voice in her head doesn’t feel like that’s the case. She ignores that stoically and peeks out of the closed door for a moment in case someone comes mowing down the door again. She then turns back to Rose. 

“So? Any changes?” 

Rose studies her for a solid minute, pursing her lips. “Finn bets it’d take two to three days for you guys to kiss. Poe didn’t change his bet. And they’re planning to make the first and second bets overlap.” 

Rey nods. “And you know this because?” 

“Finn told me because he wants me to keep an eye on you guys, too.” 

Rey’s figured, and finally opens the restroom door. “Pleasure doing business with you, Tico,” Rey says, giving her a mini salute. 

* * *

She pulls up Hangouts on GMail when she knows that Finn is too in the zone to look at what she’s up to. From there, it’s easy enough to message Ren. His work email is much the same as hers so it’s also easy enough to find him. 

  
  


<rey.niima.resistancecorp>

rose says bets 1 n 2 r gonna overlap. kiss predictions: finn, in 2 or 3 days, poe, a week. 

pda: finn, in a month, poe, says lobby hand-holding action

<kylo.ren.resistancecorp>

_ You seem to be enjoying this.  _

<rey.niima.resistancecorp>

u seem to like changing the topic. focus up. 

<kylo.ren.resistancecorp>

_ Shall I kiss you after a week?  _

<rey.niima.resistancecorp>

r u finally up for that? 

<kylo.ren.resistancecorp>

_ Yes. Shall I also hold your hand in the lobby?  _

<rey.niima.resistancecorp>

k, we kiss after the week prediction wo showing any pda in the meantime. we continue bein antagonistic from now on. 

that means no skinship again

<kylo.ren.resistancecorp>

_ Alright. When do we proceed with the PDA?  _

<rey.niima.resistancecorp>

idk yet. lets just get thru this first

* * *

Kylo thought it had been a good idea when Rey suggested that they return to antagonism after the Tico intelligence. When Poe wouldn’t stop watching him like a hawk, he’d gotten into the game bit by bit himself, enjoying Rey’s jibes for once, somehow, and genuinely looking forward to trading barbs with her. As he looks on at her, he sees she’s always hiding a smile at each insult. Which would have been weird if it was another person but since it was Rey, the slight smile that they share at each intense insult has become more enjoyable when Hux or Rose would come across the sadistic verbal exchange. 

He also found that he enjoys it because Poe would always look at him in such an exasperated way. It makes revenge taste almost too sweet in his mouth, as he goes about his day being as mean to Rey as he wants to. And her returning the favor. 

The problem was two-pronged, however, because each day they trade insults and get scowled on by Hux in a mix of contempt and confusion, he’s on edge as to when he can touch her again.

The fact that he’d very nearly leaned into her personal space one time she was telling him a proofreader change from one of their editors so he could understand has made him realize just how… one-sided this attraction might be. 

She did act so nonchalant after they’d kissed. And after that, it was so frustrating to him how easily she could say something like  _ we kiss after the week prediction  _ without even flinching. (He knows because he peeked up discreetly while she had been typing on Hangouts.) 

He’d jerked off to the thought of her lips and her warm slender body against his own more times than he cared to admit. And he decided he’d probably just use that sexual frustration to fuel his barbs. 

It worked, of course, but it would also deal with him an odd blow: He liked when she insulted him, liked when he can rile her up and send her huffing and puffing — even laughing though only in secret. 

Finn and Poe were inconsolable for the following days. Rey would find it funny when she would try to ask Finn to go out for lunch with her and pretend to be sad when he said he’d go with Poe instead. 

So, to entertain herself, she would go on Hangouts and talk to Ren about all of it. He’d reply because, well, it felt good to connect with Rey this way. 

When the week was up for the Kiss item, Ren had almost forgotten they were actually going to kiss until Rey circled the stations to his spot to call his name silently and kiss him so tenderly in front of all of the office. 

Her lips tasted like chocolate cake so he kissed her deeper. 

* * *

“Did—“

“Yes.”

“Rey just kissed Ren—“

“Yes.”

“Just like  _ that. _ ” 

“Yes,” Poe answers grimly, throwing murderous glances at Rey’s back as she and Ren seemingly just went back to work after kissing like nothing happened. 

“Did you see  _ that? _ ” Finn asks, frantic, around a mouthful of chocolate cake. Snap passes them by, also equally shocked at the exchange. Finn remembers he hadn’t greeted him yet so he mutters a shaken happy birthday. Paige is nowhere in sight, of course, Rose says she took the day off. 

“Yes, unfortunately, we were all here,” Hux says, sidling up with them. There is a visible unease there when he starts to join in on the conversation, but they recover easy, brought into a camaraderie thanks to the free birthday food. 

Finn realizes they might be looking at Rey and Ren hard at work like they were animals in a zoo, but that hardly matters when—

“This can’t be happening.” Poe hisses so Finn only hears. 

“Should we count it as PDA?” 

“We also missed that mark. It’s barely been a month and they only kissed without touching each other.” Finn says that last part a little loud enough that Hux picked up on it. 

Hux spears his fork on his cake slice and daintily puts it in his mouth. “They were just fighting a week ago. Where is this coming from?” 

“I have no idea,” Finn says sounding entirely emotionally exhausted even though it’s just noon. 

“Meeting. Now,” Poe announces in Finn’s ear. “And get Rose. This is fucking nuts.” 

* * *

After work that day, Kylo gets exclusive access at happy-as-fuck Rey. Her scowl is gone and there is a slight pep in her step. He sees her wink at Rose just before she left with pissed off Finn and Poe. And when he asked why she was still at the office, she said she ran a little behind on her work because she was covering an article for Rose as compensation for her double agency.

It sounds like something she would do, in all honesty. So he relishes the fact that him, Rey, and Hux were the only ones left in the office because of most of their backlogs. 

Just then, Hux peeks from a divider and gives them a heads up about leaving in the next hour, adding that he would lock the office so that if they had wanted to leave, they should do it now. 

Rey, in her excitement at the payback they’d orchestrated, went to celebrate with Kylo at his station again, but before she could get there, the ground beneath her shook and she crashed against Kylo’s chest in shock and whimpered when the power went out all around them. 

With the wind knocked from his lungs, he feels her trembling against him as they both sit in quiet fear. They hear Hux cursing loudly from the admin office. 

“Ren? Rey? Are you guys okay? You’re going to have to come out here and we’re going to have to take the stairs, okay?” 

“Okay,” Kylo’s voice sounds scratchy and raspy from disuse, but he’s not naive enough to realize it’s because the earthquake rattled him, too, and that he would rather not move when Rey is clinging to him so tightly. She whimpers again when he touches her hair to soothe her, cooing against her ear for her to calm down. 

“Ren?” Hux calls out, already carrying a flashlight to check for potential damages in the office. The light is wobbling slightly. It looks like they’re all shaken. “I’m going to need your and Rey’s cooperation with this. We all need to get out now.” 

“Just a minute.” He says gently, slowly peeling Rey’s arms from around his torso and holding her cheeks in his warm hands. He can’t see her but he feels wetness under her eyes. “Rey? Rey, listen to me. We have to leave now, okay?” 

Her silence feels like forever and Hux has already finished checking the office, a worried expression his face as he’s flashing the light their way. Rey doesn’t move for another full minute and then she’s looking at him and blinking away tears. 

Ren resists the urge to just carry her bridal style to safety, anything to get her to stop crying. If they were different people, he would probably even lean in and kiss her tears away. 

Instead, he asks, “Okay?” 

“Okay,” she answers so quietly he almost misses it. 

“Let’s go,” Hux says behind them after seeing Kylo’s nod. 

He helps her up and instructs her to feel the tables around her to guide her. When she just curses as they’re leaving the office and taking the stairs, he grabs her hand gently to try and calm her down. Rey flinches but he ignores it, guiding her calmly through the tiny steps even as his legs are shaking. When they reach the lobby of the office still holding hands, Hux makes no note of it, asking them instead if they were alright. 

Rey says she’s alright but that she’s still trembling and Ren echoes her sentiment before Hux is nodding and talking about making a phone call. 

They leave the office hand in hand amidst a crowd of people also bustling about in mild panic at what just happened. The office is nestled in the business district after all, and people of all ages and monetary status talk amongst themselves about what to do next. Ren knows he should go home, take stock of his own house and Ren knows Rey should, too, if the calls her phone is being bombarded with is any indication. 

They visit the nearest convenience store instead, Ren gently taking his hand from hers. It doesn’t work. She holds on to him more tightly. 

“Rey?” He whispers. The store is lit only by emergency lights so he could only study her face in a slight dim white glow. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m scared.” She says almost instantly, voice so small and hands so shaky and tight. Kylo bites his lip. 

“Okay, uhm. Do you want to maybe…” he looks around the store. There’s some cupped noodles along the shelves and a few people surveying the fridges looking for bottled water. He thinks idly that they probably should be doing the same. 

“I can get you something to eat here if you want. Do you want to eat, Rey?” 

“No.” She simply says. 

“What about some water?”

“No.”

“Do you want to go home?” 

To shut him up, Rey tugs him close on trembling arms and buries her face on his broad chest once more. If he wasn’t breathing before, he thinks perhaps he’s choking very slowly now, because Rey is so tightly wound around him he thinks her fingers might leave a brand on his back. 

People blessedly pay them no mind. 

A finger pokes the side of his cheek after a while, and he sees Rey’s eyes are shining with unshed tears and what he supposes is a slight embarrassment. 

“Your heart is beating really loudly.” Her muffled voice tells him. 

“Maybe it’s because you’re much too close to it.” His voice has gone soft, too, he realized. “Would you be so kind as to step away?” 

“No.” She insists, pressing her chin hard against his chest that it tickles him. He laughs deep and flinches, his lower back catching on the edge of an ice cream fridge in the process. Somehow, that only presses her closer to him and they stare at each other for what feels like an eternity. He swallows and he sees her blushing under the faint light but she does not let go. 

“If you tell Finn and Poe about this…”

At that, Ren laughs again, feeling his body relax and his brain short circuit at the same time. Here he was hugging Rey so tight she feels his heart beating for her and doesn’t even know it. 

“Has the earthquake shaken you enough that you forgot we were on the same side?” 

Rey snorts. Her fingers are no longer trembling but her breathing is still a little shaky. “Your rock-hard chest gave me a concussion.” 

“Wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t have such weak knees.” 

She surprises him by pinching his ass. 

“Niima, you naughty little girl.” 

“Shut up, dumbass.”

He laughs again but follows her command, feeling entirely pained and happy at the same time when she finally breaks away from him. 

It should be over by then. He’s already asked her if she was alright and she’d responded with a shrug, which, to Ren means she was feeling a little better now that she could ignore yet another confusing situation. 

But just this once, he wants to push his luck. He really wants to. 

So he asks if she wants for him to drive her home again, just so he can make sure she was safe. She says yes so timidly he almost doesn’t hear it. After genuinely not hearing her, he asks her again. 

“I said yes, dummy. Are you going to drive me or not?” She rolls her eyes at him at that and it forms another laugh in his stomach. Feeling much too bold than he probably has any right to be, he plants a chaste kiss on her cheek. Rey blushes immediately at that, throwing him such a gut-churning glare that he has to stop himself from kissing her again. 

“See? Kissing you isn’t the worst thing in the world.” He smirks and follows after her with a laugh as she’s stomping angrily in the direction of the parking lots. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's throw some fluff in this shit! <3


	4. Leia Notices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Insecurities, a damned coat, and the silent treatment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's something green here. And cute Star Wars matching pajamas.

“That’s a pretty black car you got there, bird,” Jessika says, bubblegum pink lips twisted into an amused smile. Rey wonders why she’s all made up when an earthquake had just happened literal seconds ago. She supposes she’ll never know. She never asks after all. 

“It’s uhh. It’s a rental car,” Rey says, trying not to wince at her lame excuse. She curses internally; this is what happens when you let a moron kiss you. You become a moron yourself. 

“You rant about how people don’t exercise enough and now you’re availing the services of a rental car.” Jessika puts her hands on her hips and peeks out of the window, grinning and squinting her eyes at Rey. “Speaking of which, your rental car just drove off.”

“The owner was, uhh, taking it for a test drive.” 

“With you in it?” Jessika’s eyebrow lifts. “Twice?”

“Yes.” 

“Even though that clearly looks like a new TIE model?” 

“Yes.”

“Not out in the market yet.”

“Yes…?” Rey’s unsure. Unsure if it even matters if she lies now that Jessika has unwrapped the bare minimum of layers around her poor lies. Rookie mistake. You never build your lies around what people know about because then that means they know your lie so much better than you do. 

“Must’ve been a really attentive driver, then.” 

“Oh, oh, yeah,” she says, not unlike Poe Dameron, digger of deeper holes. “Very attentive.” 

“Did you also go on a date with this car owner who so generously wants to make sure you’re comfortable enough in the car that he shows you the ropes twice.” 

Rey doesn’t mean to, but when she says attentive and comfortable, her thoughts hover over the memory of Ren’s thick thighs, of Ren’s plush lips, of Ren’s criminally silky hair, of Ren’s warm and thick fingers. Unbidden, she bites her lips. Ren had been so  _ attentive; _ she had been so  _ comfortable. _ Jessika hums and Rey knows she’s caught her. Jessika knows her stuff alright. She knows her stuff when it comes to beer, knows her stuff when it comes to lies and emotions, two things Rey’s only good at one at a time. 

Rey blushes, resorting to deflecting the conversation to something she thinks Jessika might mildly even care about. She looks at the Netflix trailer of Ellen’s DeGeneres’ new standup special that’s shining on Jessika’s laptop and tries to distract her with it. 

”Her set is incredibly funny.”

“How attentive was he?”

_ He? _ Has she let that slip, too? How dumb was she really?

Before she could think about what she said next, she blurts, “How do you know it’s a he?”

“Lucky guess.” Jessika’s knowing smile is mischievous, predatory. Rey wants to facepalm, but she looks back as the still-playing Netflix trailer looping like it’ll give her an out any minute now. It doesn’t, of course, and Jessika just saunters back in front of her laptop, plugging her earphones in and ignoring her. 

“Listen, I, uhh. I’ll just go take a shower.” 

“It’s not a bad thing to date, Rey,” Jessika says, and when Rey turns back around at her, she’s leaning on her elbows on the counter with a shrug. “It’s never a bad thing to date someone with such a nice car.” 

“Yeah.” Rey decides to give it up. “But he’s an asshole. It’s just…. it’s a weird arrangement, I don’t want to get into it right now.” 

Jessika smiles brightly and she senses the conversation is probably over. “Oh, I got you some garlic bread. You can use the microwave.” 

Rey studies her getup. “Aren’t you going to go out?”

“I just did. Guy didn’t show. Earthquake, and all that. So I just got my roomie some bread for her confused little heart.” Jessika winks. Rey snorts. 

“I’m  _ not  _ confused,” Rey maintains, disappearing into her room but not without hearing Jessika’s ringing comeback. 

“Whatever you say, roomie!”

* * *

_ Confused, my ass. _ Rey thinks as she’s preparing to go to bed. She is not confused about this situation and will never be. Ren knows what this is about and accepts it, and Finn and Poe assume they do and that was the end of it. She’d just been unfortunate that Jessika’s been home for both of the times Ren had driven her back home. Or, if not, had probably been close by, if the slow, quiet minutes after she entered the door after Rey’s “date” was any indication. She wishes she didn’t miss it, though, at least she could have cobbled together a much better lie. 

Instead, she’d run with the first idiotic idea that popped up in her head and berated herself for underestimating Jessika’s people-reading abilities. After all, she’d always said the bawdy makeup she’d put on was nothing more than a mask of a false sense of security. Jessika loved reading people more than anything, and a face they couldn’t take seriously meant they were more trusting. 

Already in her pajamas and the events of the day already seeming so long ago, she finally fishes her phone from her pocket, broken now since she’d let it go out of shock during the earthquake. It was one thing to experience a quake when you were on the ground, and it was another, more terrifying thing to experience unstable ground from 20 floors up. Thankfully, the screen still opens, still shows her notifications through a mosaic of cracks and slivers of LED light. 

Two messages are waiting for her. One is from  _ Big Stupid Moron _ and the other is from  _ Finnegan Stormlinson. _ That last one was a joke she and Finn shared for the longest time. 

For whatever reason she doesn’t want to analyze, she opens Ren’s message first, finding a picture of a black coat on her screen that suspiciously looks like the one she’d brought with her this morning. 

  
  


<Big Stupid Moron>

_ You left your coat in my car.  _

<Rey>

i can c that

<Big Stupid Moron>

_ If you want to come get it, I’m at the Starbucks near your complex.  _

<Rey>

if i wanted to, i could. but i dont. 

goodnight

<Big Stupid Moron>

_ … _

_ Goodnight, Rey. _

  
  


She refuses to analyze why she’d did that, too, and a part of her brain thinks maybe she is confused and maybe Jessika was right. But that would be ridiculous, of course. Rey knows she’s shitty with emotions but she can at least parse them out and study them that way, compartmentalize what’s going on with her brain a little and cut herself some slack. So, as she gets up and out of bed and trudges out of the apartment after she’d told Jess on the couch that she was just going to  _ get something from an asshole at Starbucks, _ she reasons it’s an act of self-love for her and her warring emotions. 

Fuck Jessika’s people reading skills. Her emotions were warring, not confused. Two different things. 

Rey was going to show her emotions who’s the boss here, and she won’t be cowed in a corner or called the bitch who couldn’t handle the heat. Kylo Ren was just some guy she’s using to get back at her friends. And he was just using her for the same reason. It’s not complicated. 

  
  


<Rey>

dont go anywhere. ill come get my coat

  
  


She sends him and he replies within the next half-second. 

  
  


<Big Stupid Moron>

_ Alright.  _

* * *

There’s always tomorrow. He and Rey work at the same damn place, for god’s sake but he’s driven all the way over Rey’s side of town to give her a damn coat. When he saw the coat on the passenger seat when she got off at her complex, he nearly had a heart attack. Scratch that; now that he’d known what it feels like to have her close in his damn car, he thinks he can never truly be safe in it anymore. When he moves his legs a little from sitting too long, his muscles sting from disuse and the phantom heat of Rey’s thighs suffuse his entire lower body that it makes him blush. 

_ What was so mesmerizing about Rey, anyway? _ He thinks to himself, looking at the coat he’d set down beside his cold black tea on the table. What, Ren? What makes her so special you would drive to a place you’ve never really ventured into before Rey? 

His thoughts are interrupted when a petite lady leans in his line of vision, solid blue eyes wrinkling in recognition. He doesn’t want to be rude but he doesn’t remember this lady, so he awkwardly looks around, waiting for someone else to acknowledge her. To no avail, because next she’s laughing her way into the seat opposite him and he doesn’t know what to do because what if Rey comes in any second from the doors and brings to bear on him her beautiful wrath? That’s wishful thinking if he’s ever had one, he supposes, one that makes him think maybe he does need to seek professional help. Should anyone get as weak in the knees as he does when he’s practically urging someone to hate on him? That can’t be right. 

The blue-eyed lady is smiling again. Talking. “Kylo! Haven’t seen you in a long time! How are you?”

“I’m… great.” he drops a glance at the door. Still nothing but darkness beyond. “Who are you again? And why do you know my name?” 

Her jaw drops playfully and Ren can’t help but wonder how that makes her look like an open Pez dispenser. Her teeth are gapped, there's a light smattering of freckles on her neck and she's sporting colored silver-purple hair. He really doesn’t remember this girl. 

“Natasha? Brief dalliance partner before Poe shagged me entirely by accident?” 

“Oh,” he nods, and then.  _ “Oh! _ Yeah, yeah! How are you?” 

“Well,” Natasha — he now knows — replies, holding a hand up and showing off a gold band on her ring finger. Ren keeps from releasing a too-obvious sigh of relief, at least she doesn’t want to get back together or some bullshit. 

“You’re getting married? That’s great!” He says, genuinely meaning it. But there’s a question at the tip of his tongue he’s still afraid to ask, although, with the way she smiled, Ren supposes she already has the right idea about what the question might be. 

“My fiancé and I were kind of on-again-off-again when we started going out. Though we’ve been together for years. I asked him one night about possibly trying again because I didn’t think it was good how we ended things.” Natasha narrates, eyeing the black lump on the table and the perspiration on Ben’s cold tea. “One thing led to another and now I guess I’m getting married!” 

“Congratulations! When’s the wedding?”

“A month from now. I really think he’s the one, you know.” 

“Yeah?” Kylo wonders what that feels like. To know you love someone enough that you want to share your life with them and join in theirs. He wonders mostly if he’ll ever have something like that. He can’t have one now, of course, there’s still the messy emotions he gets for Rey to contend with and that’s entirely a complicated knot to untangle. 

“Kylo? I think someone’s here to see you.” Natasha pulls him out of his reverie — as he sees Rey staring down at him in the cutest matching  _ Star Wars _ pajamas he’s ever seen in his life. 

“Rey, hel—“

“I came to get my coat,” she says much too quickly Ren has no time to think. In a flash, she grabs her coat, hitting his tea. The cold liquid splatters on the floor but she pays it no mind. Frantic, Kylo looks between the spilled tea and Rey’s quickly retreating form past the door. Some staff has already bustled close to his table and the next thing he knows he’s running after Rey out the door, leaving Natasha behind. 

“Rey!” He yells, trying to pick out the red and blue lightsabers in the dark. But she was already gone. 

* * *

Her coat smells a little like him now, which does not, in any way, help her situation. Jessika has long gone to bed in the time it took for her to go to and leave from Starbucks. Kylo called after her, of course, but she wasn’t having any of it. Beautiful, spritely Natasha had been there and Kylo had smiled at her. She should have known it was going to be this way. Poor clueless Rey on the reins of a relationship that will only go haywire. She should have known it won’t end well. It’s so stupid she wants to kick herself in the ass for not seeing it. 

The apartment is drenched in nothing but darkness as she trudges angrily to her room, second-guessing herself, and heads down to the laundry room instead, carrying her coat that somehow seems much too heavy now with all the realization she has. She stops short of the washing machines, looking at the hard grip of her white-knuckled fingers around the coat. It’s crushed, absolutely wrinkled from how hard she’s holding it and — she’s jealous. 

_ But why? _ She has no reason to. Kylo is not hers, they were just playing a game. With Finn and Poe. She nods to herself, loosening her grip on the coat and setting it on top of one of the washers. It’s such a waste of time, energy, and soap, but she washes it anyway and waits in front of the machines for an inordinate amount of time thinking of Kylo Ren and Natasha sitting in that Starbucks when Ren is supposed to just bring her coat back.  _ He did bring it, Rey, so where is this anger coming from? _

She wants to say she’s just tired — there had been an earthquake, she’d been much too scared, she’d relied on Ren for support, and she’d thanked him for the ride home. But she’d also stared at his face the whole way, listened to him talk about the shitty new Arctic Monkeys album and bantered with him a little about what “Currents” represented for Kevin Parker. She’d counted sheep to keep from falling asleep to the sound of his voice humming Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah” because it was rude and she didn’t want to hover into domestic fluff territory. 

He hadn’t asked her any more questions she didn’t like as they drove. Only asked her some of her interests, the things she did at the apartment when summer rolled around and the heatwave fucked with their place’s air conditioning system. So she told him she’d pull up one of the old fans she’d managed to oil and fix. How Jessika would both gladly appreciate sitting in front of it to eat some popsicles and gossip about her girlfriends and leave in the next moment in case some guy she was seeing wanted to check out a beach party. 

Kylo had laughed, his deep voice sending warmth into all kinds of directions in Rey’s body and settling like a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach. 

Unlike the tension in the car when they kissed, though, this tension was something she was experiencing herself. Kylo had been calm and respectfully distant with only enough inquiries to get her to relax. It had worked. 

By the time he’d pulled up to her complex, she was both wrung with a nervous kind of energy and a calm kind of demeanor. Unsure what to really do with that — since they were such polar opposites on the emotion scale — she had only looked at him blankly when he said goodbye, turned around the instant he asked what was wrong. 

From the looks of it, it seemed he’d stayed parked outside the complex for a little while, probably because both of them felt like they needed to analyze her reaction. 

Rey tells herself she doesn’t need to analyze anything anymore, as she glances at the digital clock to the right side of the room as it blinks 11:49 PM at her in glowing red light. Natasha was already there when she came by, with eyes shining and energy dripping much too viscerally for such a late hour in the night. 

She’s nothing like her, she thinks. And maybe that’s better. Because at least Ren doesn’t have to worry about thinking about her  _ that  _ way — bubbly, pretty, and his. 

Rey pulls her phone to distract her as she switches the coat to the dryer. On the cracked screen, she finally decides to open Finn’s message. 

  
  


<Finnegan Stormlinson>

_ heard about the quake. r u ok? get home safe? _

  
  


She looks at the time stamp of that message. 8:18 PM. 

  
  


<Rey>

yeah. im alright.

  
  


Finn replies within the next minute. 

  
  


<Finnegan Stormlinson>

_ just checking on u, peanut. since we left early, sry about that.  _

<Rey>

s’fine, where were u when the quake happened?

<Finnegan Stormlinson>

_ at poe’s. his place is at the 3rd floor but it was still scary _

_ google told us to stay inside tho _

  
  


Rey snorts. 

  
  


<Rey>

u were googling????

  
  


She can almost see Finn shrugging at that. She smiles to herself. 

<Finnegan Stormlinson>

_ there was wifi!!! _

  
  


Rey releases a good-natured laugh, thankful that no one was around to hear her. 

  
  


<Finnegan Stormlinson>

_ anw _

_ wanted to ask u smth _

<Rey>

sure!

<Finnegan Stormlinson>

_ whats with u and ren? _

  
  


It’s only a matter of time before Finn asks this, of course, she knew that. But she hates that she doesn’t have an answer to that. She and Ren weren’t anything. They were just two co-workers messing with their other two co-workers because they wouldn’t shut up about how perfect they are for each other. 

So Rey replies: 

<Rey>

nothing. 

  
  


Picks herself up from the spot on the floor she’d been sitting on and fishes her coat from the dryer before coming back to her apartment. 

* * *

Finn must have realized that she was in no mood to talk about her kiss with Ren and what that whole thing meant. He’d respectfully kept his distance when they were going up the elevator and had only asked about how the earthquake felt and blessedly did not hover into the whole why-did-you-just-kiss-Ren-so-suddenly conundrum that the whole office might as well have been broadcasting to her all morning. 

They won’t stop looking at her. It’s infuriating and — as she peeks into Ren’s desk — entirely not as enjoyable as it is when Ren is not here. Curiously, she leans over to Finn’s desk, startling him a little as she hears the soft trills of French pop when one of Finn’s earbuds hit his desk with a muted clatter. 

“Where’s Ren?” 

“Downstairs,” Finn answers easily, looking at her with a puzzlement she doesn’t let bother her. 

“Why?” 

“There’s an earthquake awareness seminar on the 15th, I think. He left this morning.” 

Rey frowns. “Doesn’t the admin do that shit?” 

Finn shrugs. “Dunno. Hux says Ren wanted to volunteer. Said something about being prepared when it happened next.” 

She retreats to her desk before Finn could give her that look again. Kylo Ren wants to be prepared in an earthquake. Why does she find that oddly charming? She shakes her head. Maybe it’s time to stop indulging Rose when she’s plying her with fanfiction. Maybe it’s time to stop thinking about Ren altogether. 

* * *

That afternoon, Finn stands up from his desk as Rey’s catching a wink of sleep. It’s 3 PM and this is usually the time he knows Rey takes a 15-minute power nap. Lately, she’s been leaving work late so Finn thinks that maybe she’s putting in some extra work to try and bump up her allowance. He can only assume, of course, plus, there was the more important matter that was the Bet List Change Day. 

Today, as Finn leaves for the mostly abandoned Training Rooms, Rose is there, waving softly at him. Poe has already pulled up the notepad copy of the list from Finn’s computer and is looking around to check the perimeter for Hux sightings. 

“Change Day,” Poe simply says, sliding a rolling chair his way. 

“PDA time. You wanna add a bet in, Rose?” Poe asks but Rose just shakes her head with a smile. 

“I’d rather sit and watch the fireworks.” 

“I’ll say,” Poe says, then turns to Finn. “Babe?” 

“What’s your last bet? And what category is this?”

“Hand-holding,” Poe replies. “Your prediction is a month, without mention of a location.” 

“Just under the table action, I think I said?” 

Poe checks the file. “Yeah. Mine’s the lobby and I implied it would be relatively soon. Wanna change yours?”

Finn thinks back to the text he’d sent her and feels unsure how to go about the situation now that it seems like there’s something in Ren and Rey’s behavior that has been odd lately. He can’t put his finger on it, though, but he hopes it’s positive. He hopes, by some miracle, this bet moves along a little better. No one has won anything and it’s now just becoming quietly competitive for some reason. 

“Two weeks.” Finn finally decides on saying. Poe nods, typing it up. Hux chooses that exact moment to roll around the corner holding a clipboard in his pale hands and stares at them with a stern expression. 

“Why aren’t you all working?” He says rather loudly, Finn stands to attention and so does Rose. But Poe tenses in front of the computer and stays still in his position, hand holding the mouse tight. 

“Storm, Tico, Dameron. You heard me. What are you doing in the Training Room?” 

“Uhh,” but Finn doesn’t get to answer because next Hux is maneuvering in between them and looking at the notepad that Poe has left open in his frozen position. He frowns, brows knitting more somehow. 

“What is this?” He asks. 

“It’s uhh,” Finn struggles. Poe saves him. “It’s an office game.” Rather lamely. 

“Office game? You’re betting on co-workers boning each other.” 

“It’s not like that,” Finn defends and nearly chokes on his tongue when Hux throws him a withering glare. Swallowing fears of potentially getting fired then and there, Finn soldiers on. “We asked Rey and Kylo to go on this double date with us and put up these bets to see if we’d be able to get them to see that they’re, you know, attracted to each other.” 

“Today we’re trying to place and adjust better bets to see if their situation fulfills the, uhm, categories.” Poe continues. Hux’s face remains coldly impassive. And then his eyes land on Rose. 

“And you? Don’t tell me you’re part of this, Tico. I expected better from you. Do you want me to assign you back to the pets website?” 

“No, no! If I have to write about parakeets and chow-chows one more time, I  _ will  _ lose it!” Rose pleads, immediately shutting her mouth when she realizes what she’s just said to Hux. He gives all of them a cold once-over before turning around. Like he is wont to do, Poe catches Hux’s attention again. 

“Maybe… you wanna place a bet, boss.” Poe says. Finn wants to bash his head against the nearest wall. 

“What are you talking about?” 

“You saw that kiss. You see the attraction they have for each other at the office.” Poe continues because his boldness apparently knows no bounds. Hux… seems to be listening, rapt and morbid fascination warring on his pale, pasty face. “Maybe you can place a bet here.”

“Why would I do that?” 

Poe’s eyes shine a little. “Money?” 

To Finn and Rose’s utter surprise, Hux turns fully around, stares blankly ahead while in thought and comes back, green eyes now somehow filled with an intent buoyed by as much mischief as even he can muster. “I’m not betting money on this nor am I expecting you to pay me if my bet turns out to be true. But I will say this of the whole ordeal; I bet that Rey and Ren know about your little shenanigans and are probably playing your own game against you.” 

Poe snorts. “That’s impossible.” 

“Has anyone won anything yet? You, Rose?”

They look in quiet confusion at each other. Hux smiles when he talks again. “There you have it.” 

* * *

Kylo thinks he knows why Rey is not giving him the time of day right now. He must have known what it looked like that night with Natasha. Truthfully, he’d thought of maybe telling her why Natasha was there in the first place, but he realizes forming any sort of sentence with Natasha’s name in the first place won’t sit well with Rey at all. Especially since the implication was that he’d gone all the way to Rey’s part of town to return to her a coat that he knew he could just as easily hand over when they got back to work again. 

She’s not wearing the coat he’d given today though, probably already threw it in the hamper. And she’s not acknowledging his existence either, it seems, and he tries to figure out why that somehow hurts more than listening to her compare him a thousand different ways to Satan in probably as many religious metaphors he’s ever heard in his life.

It seems he’s felt displaced by her behavior so much that when his mother came over at around 4 PM to announce news from the head office and talk about a new proposal about potentially adding in new website ideas, he vaguely remembers plugging his ears with his most effective noise-canceling headphones. 

He reasons it’s just because he’s never been much of a listener, but then his mother had already managed to rouse half the office, both the graphics team and the writers and proofreaders. She tells Hux to hustle the staff into the largely vacant Training Room for the announcement and he stomps his way past Finn and Rose, sidling up to Rey who still refuses to acknowledge him. 

“Niima, think they’re going to bust our operations now?” He tries, gently bumping her shoulders with, well, he’s tall, so his upper arm. Rey just tsks and retreats to the other side of the room, bracketed by Paige and Rose. Rose gives him an odd look, something that also equally displaces him. So, like an obedient son, he stands a little away from his mother, whose white coat is pressed and pristine, hair in an immaculate updo. 

“I’m not going to waste your time with formalities. The main site wants us to produce new websites. Anyone who comes up with something will be given extra compensation as part of their allowance. There’s a form in a shared document on the Drive.” Leia announces in one fell swoop. The room is filled with silent nods. Ren looks around. 

“That’s it?” He can’t help but ask. “That’s all you came here to say?” 

Leia’s intuitive brown eyes pierced his, giving the crowd another once-over. “The main site also has a couple of notes for the work of the graphics team. But since the writers will have to come up with the bulk of the new websites, I’ll air the board’s concern with our content creators first.” 

Leia talks then about proper sourcing, grammatical mistakes that need polishing and proofreaders who fail to both come to the office or even work remotely. 

It’s a boring fifteen minutes. A boring fifteen minutes Ren spends just keeping an eye out for Rey. She catches him looking once and then she’s looking away just as quickly. 

“The main site also wants us to produce more clearly quantifiable articles so the graphics team can reasonably use graphs. It would certainly cut the time it takes to release an article on the site a considerable 30%. The rest of the narrative-heavy articles will be assigned to Wedge’s proofreading arm since they’re our longest employees and have more experience.” 

She then nods to Hux who’s standing with his hands in his pockets at the end of the room. “Hux will explain the new process for the graphics team. The new website suggestions can be submitted only in the next 48 hours from now, so we expect you to pitch as many as you want. You are all dismissed.” 

Initially, Kylo had intended to tune his mother’s announcement out but had nonetheless been glad he didn’t. More quantifiable articles will make it easier for them to make graphics, and he’s even the least bit thankful to the board for greenlighting that suggestion. But as he’s looking back at his powerful small woman of a mother, the eyes of the woman who’s known him since birth rattle him a little. 

And then they rattle him a lot when she says, “You like Niima, Ben?” 

“My name is Kylo.” He insists through gritted teeth, thankful that everyone has quickly bustled out. 

“I have a stitch in my stomach because of you so I’ll call you whatever the hell I damn want. You were looking at Rey Niima, right? Brown hair, hazel eyes?”

“Yeah, so?” He tries to sound nonchalant, but they both know that never really works. 

“So don’t act so stupid. Everyone can see, Benjamin.” 

_ “Mother.”  _

“I think even Finn and Poe have a bet going on right now. As to when you and Rey will start boning each other—“

“Mom!”

Leia’s ringed fingers raise slightly from where she’s got them pressed on her lap. A subtle gesture of  _ it’s not my fault.  _

“Hux’s words, not mine.” She defends with an entirely too odd smile. Ren wants to bash something with his hands. 

But then Leia’s voice becomes soft and he is urged to listen amidst his frustration. He’s still his mother, after all. “Don’t use those bets to win her heart, Benjamin. Or someone could get really hurt.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My headcanon for every time I write Leia is that she is this incorrigible mother archetype who just wants her son to be happy but is a great jokester nonetheless. <3 This was such a fun to write. I swear, I think y'all will like what I've prepared for Chapter Five. 
> 
> Songs mentioned in this chapter:  
> Jeff Buckley's version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". 
> 
> Y'all want me to make a playlist for all the songs I'll be mentioning here or... idk. Let me know! 
> 
> Enjoy!! xx


	5. Either Party Start Acting Weird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chaotic good Poe Dameron, black nail polish, and a Hallelujah comeback.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told myself I wasn't going to come back here until after I've finished 21 of SBU. But here I am still. And I got a good feeling this is going to be something y'all would like.

The sad thing about liking someone one-sidedly is that, if you’re in close proximity with them, you find out so much about them through observation. 

Kylo feels like he’s pining for that very pretty brunette in his high school class again, watching her shine in class when she answers a teacher’s questions and then trying and failing to get his act together and just… saunter over to her to ask for her number or something. 

This is why Kylo never dates. He’s never good with strolling around and buying women drinks. He’s big and he’s tall and for most women he’d been with that had usually been enough. But in many ways, it really isn’t, not now that he’s getting older. 

Sure some men still got game when they get older, and sometimes, they got even more game at the doorstep of their 30th day on earth. But alas, Ren is not some men. He’s just a man who stayed in this company when he realized he would want to maybe one day try to ask Rey Niima out when he finally got around to it. 

Now he thinks he never might. It sucks. 

Rey does the most inane things when she’s writing, he notices. Sitting opposite her desk meant he was able to catch her actions in his periphery when he stands up to get some water, or when he leaves to get lunch down at the cafeteria when he feels even the slightest bit comfortable interacting with people. 

In the two weeks that Rey ignores him like he’s never existed in her life, he’s known that Rey does not care what she looks like to most people when she’s writing or reading. Where he’s impassive, Rey’s face twists with expression at even the slightest triggering statement she reads. When she reads about tainted meat incidents and rat and horse meat being imported from China to the USA — no matter that it was news that was at least six-years-old — her nose scrunches up and her freckles are pulled tight. Her eyes narrow and her whole face turns sour. When she reads about the latest buzz with the Kardashians when she’s switched to the daily news website, she talks about it loudly with Finn, rolling her eyes as she is forced with the dilemma of describing yet another half-naked picture as politely as she can in her articles. 

One time, she’d barked a loud “What?” and caught the attention of the entire office — she didn’t even flinch. After a while, he found out that it was because she stumbled upon an article where certain men in China were marrying robots because they were tired of dealing with living, breathing women. There was a long talk about misogyny in there, how the unnatural practice of marrying robots sent a distorted kind of message about what women are like in real life, and Ren couldn’t even enjoy Vampire Weekend’s _Hold You Now_ as they talked because he was too busy laughing along to the sound of Rey sassing out her reasoning around a mouthful of convenience store-bought lasagna. 

He’d known she was smart, _very_ smart, if he’d say so himself. Hux certainly likes switching her from site to site. One moment, Hux’d put her on a human research website and Ren would be reading her work like it was a published thesis, and the next he’d crack himself up picking out meme references in the middle of one of her movie reviews. 

It’s… certainly an odd relationship. If he’s being honest, he doesn’t think it’s a relationship at all. Just a sort of agreement. Cut off comes and Hux badgers the graphics team to release as many articles as they can before next month and the swamp of work that greets him is a good change of pace for once. He’s not sure what kind of person feels relieved to be doing more work in a shitty company but that’s where he’s at right now. At least he won’t be doing a lot of pining when a big part of his brain is concerned with the right font styles and parsing out and paraphrasing text from articles to put them on digestible graphics. 

He’s in the middle of teasing out the meaning of one of the more complicated health articles from Wedge’s team when Rey walks up to him with a red nose and bloodshot eyes. She looks tired, sick. He stands up too fast and his chair bumps the wall quietly. Rey glares at him and looks around the office. The rest of the graphics team is distracted by the workload. She turns back to Ren. 

“Sit down,” she says quietly, and he follows, moving quietly because he feels like if he moves too fast he might scare her away into putting him under silent treatment again. But the nagging worry that claws at his throat as he sees her is something else he doesn’t really know how to control. 

So, he asks, “Rey, are you alright? Are you sick?” 

She snuffles, ignoring his question. “Wedge said I didn’t source my article right. I already explained it to him that I did but he insisted I come over here to tell you.” He listens, attentive, when she points at her article instead, commandeering his entire desk and navigating her way through the system on his mouse. It’s the first time he’d seen her fingers up close and somehow, that squeezes at his heart a little. 

Her fingers are long, her nails clipped. There’s a slight tremble in them that he supposes is because she’s sick. She smells like jasmine, the recycled air-conditioned air, and coconuts. When she talks, he can tell she’s had some apple tea. 

“Did you get it?” Rey asks when she finishes, and he nods frantically, grappling at the edges of his mind for what she’d just said. Shit. He should have listened. Before he can respond, Rey stuffs her shaky hands in the pockets of her oversized jacket and circles back to her desk. He stands up before he realizes the implications of that and the entire line beside him turn around to see the commotion. Poe is looking at him with knitted brows, a tab of scanlated manga on his right monitor, but Ren ignores him. 

“Rey?” 

“This is work, Ren. You can call me my last name. As you do,” she tries to say as detached as she can manage, but Ren knows there is something else weighing her words down, something else that’s causing her to not face him. 

“Okay,” he obliges. “Niima. You have to tell Hux if you’re sick. In case it gets worse.” 

“Why do you care?” She bites back and somehow, Ren misses that the sentiment isn’t tainted in a snarl because then Rey is genuinely tired. From the looks of her, genuinely tired emotionally.

“Sweetheart,” he says despite himself. That earns him another glare, one that would have been a joy to see if she’d done it so ironically. But this is not ironic. This is antagonism without the Satan metaphors. This is deep-in-your-bones anger that, frankly, he doesn’t know what is caused by. 

“Don’t call me that. Get back to your station.” She says, pulling her chair closer to her desk and slotting her earphones. He totters where he stands for a long time. He knows it’s quite a long time because Ren doesn’t just hover in the background not being noticed. He’s tall and that’s kind of a fact of life he just has to live with every day. 

It doesn’t take Finn long to notice him, and even his in-the-zone typing dash is distracted by the fact that Kylo Ren is in Rey’s side of the office and that the fighting has somehow become like the cold war. Before Kylo sighs and leaves for his desk again, he sees how Finn and Poe’s eyes meet beyond the divider. 

They’ll let them have this one, then. 

* * *

Rey leaves work early because Ren had been right about her potentially getting sick. And as she stood in front of Hux to ask if maybe she could just submit revisions over the weekend just before the Sunday deadline, she’d been glad he said it was fine. 

When she prepares her stuff and gets up to leave, she feels Ren’s eyes following her as she moves, not bothering to turn around to analyze the look on his face if she turns around now. 

She doesn’t want to look at those eyes. 

* * *

Conspiratorially — and because Ren knows it’s a Poe thing to act like he always has a secret with everyone he meets — Dameron leans into his personal space over light pre-dinner snacks. Half the team had shaved off the 100 articles they needed to release through Sunday. Ren would be mad at Poe for traipsing around in the convenience store with him, not knowing what to pick and eat, if not for the fact that Poe actually pulls his own weight around despite his shenanigans. 

Kylo wonders idly if he does that for the express purpose of having enough time for the shenanigans. 

He scowls, watching Poe give the fridges another once over. “Dameron, if you’re not getting an iced coffee or something, I’m going to leave.” 

“What’s going on, Ren?” He asks as Ren is still finishing his sentence. 

Ren’s scowl cuts deeper. “What?”

“You and Rey,” he replies, rubbing his stubble. Ren’s face remains impassive as he asks again. “You do know we all saw that kiss, right? Unfortunately, that was not a hallucination of yours.” 

“I’m going to leave.”

“Oh, come on, bud!” He shoots back, leaning casually back with the Dameron swagger Ren himself had always wanted to have. “Finn and I have been saying for the longest time how we know you’ve got the hots for Rey Niima. You’re not a very good liar, you know that.” 

Ren turns around, pushing the door open almost roughly and Poe follows easily behind, hands in his pockets. Ren doesn’t want to crush the chocolate slushie in his grip, not now that he needs that extra pump of sugar. But something about Poe’s easy air about him today bothers him, and the implication that he’s dropping is making him wish he never indulged Poe when he asked to be joined at the convenience store. 

“You don’t have to lie to yourself all the time, Ren,” Poe says now that they’re waiting on one of the elevators. A line had formed in the time it took for Poe to pick absolutely fucking nothing. 

He ignores him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You called her sweetheart.” 

“I was urging her to get some rest.” 

“You never call _me_ sweetheart?” 

Kylo blinks at him. “Are you serious right now?”

“And you’ve never been like this before, Ky-ky—“

“That’s not my name.”

“It’s not Kylo either, dumbass. But my point stands. Why don’t you just… date the girl, you know,” Poe presses his lips in a pout and sucks a tiny gush of air in, making a kissy sound. A woman in her 30s looks behind him with contempt and very quickly Poe is apologizing for the misunderstanding. Kylo snorts, the line moves, and he tries to stay a few paces ahead of his irritating friend. 

_“‘Kiss de girl?’”_ Poe says again, coming into his periphery. 

“If that’s a _Little Mermaid_ reference then I don’t think I can respect you as an adult.” Kylo simply says. 

“Many adults watch the _Little Mermaid,_ Ren, it’s why Disney greenlighted a live-action. We’re not all dark lords like you who secretly writes fanfiction on the side.”

“Where do you get these _inane_ insults that do _nothing_ to me?” 

“It’s because I’m not Rey, right? Because you like Rey?” Poe badgers. Ren distracts himself and wonders if the middle elevator is broken again. Someone should really fix this building. 

Kylo sighs. “Why does it matter so much? It’s not like that matters in the bet—“ and then Poe claps his hands and dramatically whirls around, curly hair slightly catching the light draft in the office from the wide-open lobby doors. Then Poe points at him. Kylo wishes he can just facepalm — or ask the earlier lady to clock Poe for him because surely that would be easier than having to explain to Rey that he’d sank their perfect plan without her knowledge. 

Maybe she’ll get mad and be herself again. 

“I knew it! Hux was right! Oh, man! How’d you know?” 

Kylo’s lip twists, contemplating that question. Finally, the first elevator frees up and their batch manages to huddle in. Only when Poe is pressed at his left flank does he answer quietly in the enclosed space. 

“Rey hacked Finn’s computer. Found it.” 

Poe nods in rapid succession. “Sounds like her.”

“Why do you guys want us to be together so much?” It’s a genuine question, something he supposes should have been the first question he’d asked when Finn and Poe first set them up on that date. (Which, for him, had honestly ended quite great in the end.) 

Poe thinks on that as some elderly lady gets off floor 8th, pearls around her neck. 

“A matchmaker never reveals their secrets.”

“Magician,” Ren corrects. Poe huffs. 

“Fine. Finn noticed that Rey’s attraction for you was growing, but since you couldn’t find it in you to just indulge the girl when she’d been trying to connect with you, Finn felt like it was his duty to do something about that.” 

“Why does it sound like Finn has a savior complex?”

“He does, doesn’t he?” Poe replies, feeling zero offense on behalf of his boyfriend. “But you get what I’m saying, right? Finn’s idea was to maybe get you guys to sit still in a room and make friends again, maybe a spark will come, y’know.”

“How come you slept with Natasha first before I did, though? If best friends were supposed to help their best friends find dates through forced formal dinners?”

The elevators dings their floor and Poe gets out first. “First off, the fact that you called me your best friend again—“

“I didn’t.”

“—means we’re no longer at war with the whole Natasha incident. And second of all,” Poe opens the door for him with a flourish; he levels him with a glare. “I am hooking you up right now. With Rey. Who everyone in the office _knows_ also likes you.” 

“She doesn’t,” it hurt for him to admit that but maybe it’s true. Maybe he should stop imagining this could be something more. 

Poe doesn’t look convinced. “Sure, she says that _now—“_

“Dameron, nothing is going to happen. Because I screwed it all up already before it’s even began.” 

“Hey, Ren,” Hux suddenly pops up from the adjacent room and hands him a piece of paper. “You’ll be taking on the entertainment articles. Warren left early. Dameron.” Hux says last before retreating to his desk. 

“Hux,” Poe says before he’s turning back to Ren with squinted eyes. 

Maybe if Ren ignores him, he’ll go away. 

“What do you mean, _screwed it up?”_

“She saw me with Natasha.” 

Poe whistles at that, raising a fisted hand over his mouth. “Don’t tell me you were making out with Natasha after y’all just PDA-ed in the office and nearly gave all of us collective heart attacks.”

“We talked about her wedding.”

And he supposes he should be thankful that at least Poe is perceptive enough to read between the lines, nodding as he goes. “And Rey didn’t know that last bit, I gather.” 

Kylo shrugs. “I guess not.” 

Poe nods again, like Kylo just specified to him the specs of a new phone he’s trying to sell, or like he’s telling him why this cocker spaniel right here is better than that border collie over there at a Dog Show. 

And then Poe snaps his fingers. “Aha! You’re going to take care of her!”

“What?”

“Take care of her? You know? Chicken soup and shit? You’re such a nurturer.” Poe says, dripping with blatant sarcasm. But damn it all if Kylo isn’t thinking of that, too, sharing a space with Rey and making sure she feels content and warm and safe. It’s… odd, to want to be the reason for someone else’s happiness. He’s only ever been Rey’s source of headache after all. 

But Ren knows to be careful of illusions. He comes back to his seat, pulling up the article he’s queued up and starts reading even while Poe is still there. His thick arms come to the top of his chair, just sitting there. Kylo sips from his slushie in silence before Poe talks again.

“Here’s the deal: I’ll keep quiet with Finn about how you know all that we’ve been doing the past few weeks.” 

“If?” Kylo’s not an idiot; he knows that’s just a precedent. 

“If, you make sure to take care of our little peanut for us.” 

Kylo is silent for a long while. The whole time Poe just watches, glancing every once in a while to nod at the rest of the graphic team around them pulling overtime. 

“Tonight?” Kylo asks. 

“Sure, why not.” 

“What if she doesn’t want me there?”

“That’s a possibility. But whether or not you succeed, I’ll take your extra entertainment section workload for you and you can waltz out that door right now. Just promise me you’d go to her.”

“What could you possibly get from this?” He asks, finding it odd that Poe is cutting a deal with him to, well, court Rey, even as Finn is not here to know about, having already left for the day. Poe shrugs good-naturedly, patting his friend’s shoulder. 

“I know a good match when I see one. That’s you two.” 

_Good match,_ Poe says. And he lets him go then, settling in his chair. He ponders the offer. He certainly would not like the extra workload and all he did manage to think about all day was how Rey had been sick and probably dealing with it alone in her apartment. 

So, he ignores it when Poe flashes him a toothy grin as he’s slipping his long arms into his jacket, savoring the short confusion and eventual resignation on Hux’s face when he takes his leave, feet headed straight for Rey’s complex. 

* * *

Rey has half a mind to open the door when a knock comes. Some Ella Mai is playing in the background as her favorites shuffle and it’s almost funny to her that she sees Ren’s face as Ella Mai croons _whatchamacallit?._

Almost. 

“What the hell, Ren?” She asks, eyeing plastics full of what she assumes are groceries. Rey blinks at him, making sure her fingers are splayed out for the nail polish she’d been putting on to dry. 

Kylo nods at her. “Good evening.” 

Rey hesitates before she decides greeting him would probably be fine. “Good evening.”

But then he says: “Can I come in?” 

“Why?” Is her immediate response, keeping him pinned in his position as she’s staring him down. She blows on her nails. The black nail polish softly glinting in the dim light coming from the kitchen. Kylo gives her a timid smile that she should not find as oddly charming as she does right now. 

“I brought you some soup. Er, I just bought it, actually. It’s probably not healthy, now that I think of it. But, I got some honey and lemongrass tea here, too. I remember you liked tea so I bought the box of teabags and this jar of honey—“ Ren lifts the plastic bag on his right hand a little. “—for you.”

“Why?”

“You’re sick. I wanted to help you.”

“I don’t need your help.” She fires back. It’s not as snappy or vitriol-filled, but for now, it will have to do. Some Alice Francis starts to play. _Too Damn Hot_ , as Ren gently places the plastic bags down and reaches for her still-drying, black-nail-polished hands. For the life of her, she only flinches but does not take her hand immediately away from his. 

It’s just because she doesn’t want to ruin the polish, she reasons. But then Ren is nodding like he approves of her handiwork. And when he speaks next, she supposes maybe he does. 

“This is a good color on you,” he says. 

“Black is a good color on anyone.”

He asks again. “Can I come in, Rey?”

“Nii–“

“We’re not at work right now,” he retorts back gently, picking his bags up again. “And we can’t let all this food go to waste.” 

He’s right, damn it. So she lets him inside, wishing she doesn’t regret it. Being sick is confusing. She’s both hot and cold at the same time, and the absolute wackiness of her body is what convinced her that maybe just lounging around in an oversized tee and some old undies at home is the way to go. She doesn’t change even when Ren is here because why should she. This is her apartment. 

She crosses her arms as she watches him unload fruits, the tea box he’s talking about, the jar of honey, some chicken soup mix and what looks like a fleece blanket. 

Rey frowns. “You bought a blanket, too?” 

“Hm? Oh! This is just mine. In case you get cold.” 

She watches his eyes dart to her legs and when he gulps, something inside her feels strangely proud. In the background: Pink Sweat$ comes on, _Body Ain’t Me._

Ren clears his throat and Rey smirks, choosing to retreat into her little pillow pile on the couch and hug one pillow between her thighs. She knows Ren is looking, but she hardly cares. He clears his throat again, announcing that he’d just start cooking if she doesn’t mind him using their kitchen. 

And Rey reminds herself the game just extends here, reminds herself never to forget where she stands with Ren who regularly attracts prettier, bubblier women than her. 

She ignores his presence in her kitchen, mostly, humming along to herself instead when _Videotape_ comes on. And the next thing she knows, she’s hearing his deep voice humming along to the song, too. Still, she refuses to look at him. 

When the song changes into the more anthemic drums and riffs of Two Door Cinema Club on _Sleep Alone,_ Ren is standing at the foot of the couch, holding a steaming mug of something in his hand. 

It’s probably the tea. She arches a brow at him. “You took up all that time just to make me tea?” 

He crouches, meeting her glare with a secret weapon of his own. “Did I take too long? Did you miss me?” 

Rey stares at him blankly, before taking the tea from his hands. His fingers are as thick and warm as she remembers, and she ignores that, too, folding her bare legs under her and sipping the tea. It’s good tea and she almost moans at it, but she checks her nails instead. All dry. 

Ren remains cross-legged in front of her on the floor, watching her. Their eyes meet when Nicki Minaj starts playing. She smirks when he winces, sipping away at her tea. 

And then he surprises her by asking: “Can I paint your toenails, too?”

“What?” 

“With black nail polish,” he says, gently tapping a thick finger over her clasped ones. “Just like these.” 

“Why?” She asks again, pulling her feet closer to her out of impulse. 

Kylo shrugs. 

There’s a standoff there she doesn’t quite understand. She’s defensive even though he’d just made her tea, and he… doesn’t look as antagonistic as she remembers. It scares her because she likes it, him, like this, soft, and looking at her some kind of way. 

Her eyes land on the nail polish beside her phone on the coffee table and as he follows her gaze to it, his big hand comes over the little pot, almost too comically large. 

She giggles and that catches his attention because he smiles, too. 

“May I?” He says much too quietly, even as Arctic Monkeys start to fill the white noise around them. She shivers when she offers him her right foot, hiding her surprise as she clutches the tea mug closer, trying to get the scent of the tea to calm her. 

It doesn’t work — because then Kylo is massaging her foot, as she watches with tainted cheeks as he slowly plants a kiss on her big toe, keeping steady eye contact with her. 

It’s too much so she looks away, trying not to squirm in case she sees those eyes again. 

_Mad Sounds_ slowly dies as the minutes tick by, and by the time she turns back to him, the dim kitchen light illuminates his face only enough that his eyes burn through hers with an intensity she’s never noticed before. 

Then he sets her foot down gently on one of his thick thighs and — she should put an end to this. She should stop him from reaching that pot and painting her toenails like he’d asked. She can’t, though, she can’t because his fingers are surprisingly gentle. He’s surprisingly good with controlling the brush, coating her nails with ease. 

It’s not long before he finishes all ten toenails, admiring his work. She sets her empty tea mug down. 

“Do you know… what I felt like the moment you walked into the office with that smile on your face?” 

Rey wants to read his face but he keeps it down, H.E.R’s _Focus_ the ironic soundtrack at the moment. 

She doesn’t ask, but he goes on. “I was about to resign then and work at one of my mother’s other fields of interests.” His voice is quiet and his fingers are slowly massaging her calves. “It would be so easy. And then you came along—“

“Ruined it?” She interjects but she only earns a blatant look of something much too dark and unreadable. 

It’s an awkward angle and it bends her legs at an odd angle, but he kisses her knee anyway, making her bite her lip subconsciously. He catches it, taking his ministrations up a notch when he noses her there. 

“No, Rey. You made it better. You became the sunshine of my life.” 

Rey tries to scoff but finds that her mouth had gone dry. She lets him gently place her leg atop his shoulder and she knows he’s practically face-to-face with her crotch now but he keeps looking at her instead, which is somehow more gut-churningly sexy than if his eyes darted immediately on her panties. 

Why did she have to wear gray ones?

“It’s so corny, isn’t it?” He whispers, face moving slowly closer and Rey has a vague sense of stopping him before he’s doing that himself, taking a deep drag of air through his nose as his eyes finally, finally flicker on her underwear. 

He swallows thickly when he catches the slight damp spot there, quietly, so quietly, talking again: 

“You smell… really good.” 

That shouldn’t be so obscene, it should be slightly gross because she’s so fucking horny he can smell her but she just can’t care right now. She doesn’t want to think that this is a game at this moment right now. That hurts too much. So, she leans in as Jeff Buckley comes on. And as she’s kissing his lips very slow, she whispers above Buckley’s _Hallelujah_ : 

“Worship me, Ren.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs on this chapter: 
> 
> Hold You Now - Vampire Weekend ft. Danielle Haim  
> Whatchamacallit - Ella Mai ft. Chris Brown  
> Too Damn Hot - Alice Francis  
> Body Ain't Me - Pink Sweat$  
> Videotape - Radiohead  
> Sleep Alone - Two Door Cinema Club  
> (unmentioned) Good Form - Nicki Minaj  
> Mad Sounds - Arctic Monkeys  
> Focus - H.E.R
> 
> and of course, Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley. 
> 
> Let me know what you think of this chapter! Sound off on the comments below! <3 Oh, and if y'all would like, I've set up a Twitter account under this AO3 handle: @cosinterference. Come hang! xx


	6. Non-Asshole Ren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two dumb planets finally gravitate toward each other.

As she says it, Rey tells herself she and Ren are of a certain accord where they do this all the time. That they’re the kind of people who go to coffee shops on corny dates and do picnics even though not one of them can cook. She imagines they’re the Nora-Wedge type, the type who kiss each other in the office because everyone knows it’s not a game and that there’s a glinting ring to prove it. 

She pretends all this when Ren bored his eyes on her and she preens and basks in his attention. She supposes he likes that because he’s breathing so deep again and now they can both smell her. 

It’s ridiculous. 

Buckley is still crooning in the background and tension just keeps growing the longer they don’t touch each other — until Ren kneels, awkward long legs hitting the coffee table. Rey opens her legs up automatically, catching him by the lips as he pulls close. 

It’s slow, it’s heated, the kiss, and in the back of Rey’s mind she thinks it’s probably not a good idea to do this while she’s still kind of sick but Buckley lulls them in a bubble together, like there’s no Finn, no Poe, no Rose to bribe, and bet to game. 

It’s just Ren and Rey kissing in her dimly lit apartment. He cups a warm hand over her mound and it surprises her so much she tears her lips from his. He bites at her lower lip gently at that, chuckling when she yelps. 

She intended to protest the stinging on her mouth but loses that train of thought quick when he slips a hand up her oversized tee, stopping just short of the curve of her breasts. She’s flaring up; she’s sure she’s probably in a garbage fire right now trying and failing to control the licking flames of searing desire. 

Ren doesn’t see her breast under the shirt but he manages to flick a nipple with the pad of his rough thumb well enough. Her cunt clenches at the attention. 

With half-lidded eyes, she glimpses he’s smiling, bringing his other hand up to her cheek. And because this is the Nora-Wedge parallel universe version of Ren and Rey, she leans into it. It surprises him, but he leans in to kiss her anyway, breaking away only so he could do it again. And again. And again. Almost unthinkingly. 

And Rey takes because it’s the only thing someone like her can get. She takes because it’s easier than finally admitting to herself that she might truly like this man back. And she knows saying that out loud might make the stars align for it. 

Then he stops kissing her, just dragging his hands down to her hips, the smallest fingers of his thick hands tucking underneath the garter of her underwear. He looks down at her pointed nipples, bobbing slightly in time with her heavy breathing. 

Suddenly, she is self-conscious, distracting herself with turning the music off from her phone before some Kendrick Lamar comes on. She’d already heard the first note. The spell has broken a little in the time she moved, but coming back into Ren’s arms meant she was back in it, the center of his universe, the sun of his solar system. 

_ You became the sunshine of my life, _ he’d said, and damn it all if she didn’t like hearing that.

“Rey,” he whispers, entirely too loud in the quiet room. “If this goes further..” he pauses, eyes trailing up and down frenetically from her heaving chest to her — she’s sure — flushed face. “If this goes further, can we acknowledge that there’s something here?”

“Something?” 

Kylo nods and Rey wants to pretend she doesn’t understand. Because they weren’t Nora and Wedge in the first place, they were just… two co-workers. 

She’s scared so she doesn’t think, doesn’t answer. Because Rey is good at that. Rey is good at storing information and regurgitating it later if it’s important, junking it if it’s not. 

She can’t decide what this is yet, so she files it under pending, throws caution to the wind and strokes her fingers in Ren’s downy hair, his scalp covered with a light sheen of sweat. She gravitates toward his hairline for a second, finally getting her hands on his stupid hair. 

As if he reads her mind, he hoists her up gently and stills, waiting for her to protest. When she doesn’t, his gentle footfalls rattle against her ears as he navigates the small hall they have, entering the only open door in sight. 

“It could have been Jessie’s room,” she teases, somehow both turned on beyond belief and feeling lightheaded, like she just came out of a head rush. 

Ren smiled the kind of smile she’ll never admit she likes, the one that shows those deep dimples. “It could have been. But it’s not. Powers of deduction.” 

He’s so handsome. Her heart can’t take it.  _ So, why is he here with me? _

He goes quiet, rigid for a moment before he’s folding down, laying her quietly on the bed like she’s fine China. And then when he answers, she blushes because she realizes she’d said it out loud. 

“Because I like you, Rey,” he says, the naked truth now unmistakable. “I like you… more than the bet. Before the bet.” 

Rey wonders why they’re having this conversation now. When she’d said what she’d said, she’d expected Ren would get the hint and swim in her pussy ‘till kingdom come—or she did—not profess—

“Wait, what? You  _ hated  _ me.”

Ren sighs, thick fingers coming up to caress her inner thighs. He’s still not looking at her. 

“Ren?”

“I didn’t.” He looks up. “I don’t hate you.”

“Then what did you fight me for?” 

“I— liked you so much I didn’t know what to do with myself.” 

She’s stunned, fantasies of Ren’s lips covered and shining with her fluids momentarily forgotten because these are feelings now, unmotivated by what lust they are feeling right now. These feelings are warm in the way lust isn’t, they’re uncomfortable because they’re true. 

And it’s only made more uncomfortable by the fact that she could just be Ren’s storage-closet fuck after this. Though the part, the simplistic, hopeless bit of her that sees Ren in a much more positive than usual light, thinks that maybe that’s all they could ever be; that maybe that’s the best decision right now for them. 

His answers ran deeply contrary, though, because Rey wonders why it’s important for him to lie to her face right now. 

“You were my sandbox moment. I was pulling your hair to get your attention because I didn’t know how to say I liked you yet. And then I never got around to saying it.” His hands are back on her nail-polished feet, as he passes his fingers between her toes. His expression is unreadable. 

“You shine so bright, Rey. I love the way you write, I love the smile on your face, I love your snort-ish laugh—“

“Hey!”

“—if you only knew how much I’d wanted to be the reason for that. What I wouldn’t give for all this to be real because I’m selfish and I want it to be. I want to hold your hand and kiss your lips and hold your hair up when you’re puking in the morning after you get so hammered — even if it wasn’t with me. I want to be able to tuck you into bed, slips socks on you when you shiver in the dead of night and cook you simple breakfasts even if I don’t know how to cook. I want to satisfy you and chase away your misery because… I think I’ve fallen in love.” 

_ With me? _ The equally-selfish part of her thinks. The confession all but confuses her, thinking that maybe she should stop, that they should stop before his words ring true. 

Rey doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but she’s gasping obscenely still when he pulls her roughly to the edge of the bed and parts her legs in front of his face and for once, Rey just wants to be selfish. 

Ren’s nose lands on her mound, hard, sharp nose pressed against where she’s aching. So aching. But he doesn’t talk. Not anymore, as he’s dragging her panties down, watching the fabric catch on her slit and following the snap of the damp fabric. 

He brings it to his nose to smell it and when he leans back in to press the hot flat of his wet tongue against her cunt finally, her eyes roll back so fast it’s almost painful. 

Ren doesn’t even hurry it, it’s so slow, languid like he’s weighing her flavor in his mouth, deciding if he likes it. And Rey’s not even sure why she’s enjoying the slowness of it all, the tiny tingle of sensation it brings her when he parts her and locates her clit there just to kiss it. 

It’s like he’s not even eating pussy at all. 

She’ll even go so far as to say maybe this isn’t even sex at all. Because he’s pushing her flesh with his nose so tenderly, watching her with a lust that’s clouded with something else. And when she comes, silent, he moves up and gently presses his hard clothed cock against her still-wet cunt. 

She starts crying then. She starts crying because of the confusion Jessika talked about that she didn’t acknowledge. She starts crying because she could be Ren’s in another universe, but not in this one. 

And how can he even confess like that? Like he cared what she was like, what she did? When Natasha is there and she doesn’t even hold a candle to her? 

Ren kisses her tears away, whispers against her cheeks  _ what’s wrong?, _ but she kisses him anyway, salt on her mouth and her taste on his tongue and she’s pushing his clothes off of him because she’s going to pretend as much as she can. She’ll keep this all in until it dies, or until it kills her first. 

Rey’s lips tremble, letting herself go. Kylo looks quietly troubled, eyes a pit of beautiful, unspoken emotions. She supposes that’s expected when you’re hooking up with someone for the sake of an act, supposes that’s the new normal between them — hostile pretentious spunk in the company of others, and confusing bundles of emotions with each other. 

“I want to be yours, Ren, just for tonight.” 

_ Tonight. _ He’s taken aback. As he stills, he drops her legs, his hips stop grinding, and she cries some more. 

“Tonight.” He repeats like he hadn’t heard her. 

“Yes.” 

“Just tonight.” He says again, quite like he’s testing the weight of her words. Rey does not expect the cold absence of his heated skin to sting so much. But it does, and somehow the fact that she knows he can touch her but could choose not to is a testament to what the whole dynamic is: a game. 

Ren asks again. “Why?” 

“You know why.” But her voice cracks and she’s covering her crying face with both her arms even as she’s half-naked and he’s hard as stone in his pants. 

“I don’t, sweetheart—“

“Don’t call me that, please— just. Get it over with. Please.” She pleads, waiting with bated breath as Kylo touches her again, his warm hands gently urging her to lift her arms so he can slip her top off of her.

“Get it over with,” he grumbles. 

Though he doesn’t say anything when her breasts bob only ever so slightly at the last tug of her shirt. The next thing that enters her mind is Ren’s brutish-looking fingers tracing a hot, delicate trail across her sternum, and then following that same trail with his wet tongue. 

His hips bucked once, involuntarily, and the second is only full of intent, she knows, because then he’s lifting one of her legs again and pressing it around his waist so he can pin down harder. 

If his thumb had felt remarkable on her nipples, his lips around the dusky peaks are a brand on her skin. He lavishes too much attention on her tiny breasts and she wonders why, even as she’s crying out his name. 

“I’m sorry— they’re not,  _ ah, _ ” then he nips at her nipple and the slight bite he presses against the pointed tips make her whole body shake. “They’re—my breasts—they’re small.”

Ren looks at her eyes, then, her left breast slipping out of his mouth and it’s so obscene— but she can’t get over the blankness in his eyes and its odd intensity at the same time. 

In the next second, it’s like something slots into place. And for the first time, she sees Kylo Ren lose an iota of his measured control, his massive hands coming to pin her hands on the bed, one hand retreating to pop his button and fly open as he plunges into her steady and quick. 

She yells a moan, crying and Kylo is saying through gritted teeth, “Do you even.” Thrust. “ _ Know _ what you  _ do  _ to me, Rey?” Thrust. “How I.” Thrust. “Jacked off to you.” Thirst. “After the first time we kissed.” Thrust. 

Their lips found each other, parting only when Rey sneaks in her own sharp bite on his lower lip. His eyes glint a little mischievously at that, his next thrust emphasized with a near-primal growl. 

“You’re so beautiful, so sweet, so  _ tight, _ ” he’s breathless, pistoning hard and deep, uncaring about the squeak and the thud of the headboard against the wall. 

She closes her eyes. 

“Look at me when I’m fucking you, Rey. I want you to remember this moment because lord knows I will—”

Rey chokes, eyes screwed shut. “It’s a game!” A hard thrust that hits her just right. 

“To you, maybe. But not to me.” He mumbles, dropping on his arms and slowing his pace, marking her chest with lovebites she cherishes — along with his confession. 

A second of loaded silence pass them by when he looks at her like he wants to say something more. His eyes certainly show it. She knows because she’s staring at them now, and they seem to go on forever. Before she drowns in it, Rey takes matters into her own hands. 

She wrestles him on his back and rides him in earnest, relishing the power she feels when his groans become deeper and more frantic. 

That look she’d seen fades, covered in the way his eyes flutter closed at the pace she’s setting, bouncing on his cock so hot and so quick she hears their skin slapping. He’s easily the best she’s ever had, which is a piece of information she doesn’t know what to do with.

“Revenge is sweet, Ren,” she says, slightly delusional with how much she’s clenching around his thick cock. 

Ren’s eyes fog up. 

“But you’re sweeter.  _ Daddy. _ ” 

At that, he lurches forward, latching onto her lips as he comes in thick ropes inside her then and there, balls flexing as he grips her so tight in his arms that she  _ wants  _ it to bruise. She follows shortly after him once more when she rode him through his orgasm, brought to completion by his rough thumb over her clit. 

As he traces patterns against her sweat-slicked shoulders down to the dimples on her back, she chuckles softly, slender fingers in his hair. 

“So. Daddy kink, huh?” 

Ren groans, coming back to himself. He pinches her ass — and then slaps it. 

“Ren!” She gasps. “You’re a naughty Daddy!”

“Fuck, stop.” But he’s laughing that deep, warm laugh, nuzzling her neck. 

In the silence, she sighs, gripping his sweaty body and inhaling him in the afterglow before saying, “My head hurts  _ so  _ much.”

So they tumble slowly as they’re laughing, Ren bustling about around her the next half hour making sure she is well-kissed and appropriately healed this time. 

The whole time she thinks about all the mixed signals he’d sent and then throws them in a deep corner of her mind to assess them later. 

Is this, too, a mistake?

* * *

“Another fucking party?” Ren hears first, muffled when he first opens his eyes, naked as the day he was born. It occurs to him that this is not his house and that he’d done something different last night than the usual stand up comedy YouTube marathon that took up his weeknights. 

“It’s not like the bosses pay for our celebrations. Snap just had cake and pizza the last time, how come we’re having another one?” He locates the muffled, exasperated voice ringing from the living room where he suspects Rey is now. He finds his pants draped on a chair beside the bed, his socks and boxer briefs folded on the seat along with them. But as he looks around, he doesn’t see his dress shirt. 

He should probably not do it— it’s too domestic— but he comes out of her room in only his boxer briefs, suddenly feeling both self-conscious and very slightly confident Rey would find him more inviting if he does this. 

God, this is peak insecure Kylo Ren, a version of himself he hadn’t felt like in a very long time. But Rey just makes him want to do different things, he supposes, including actively seeking her approval. 

He finds her in the kitchen and feels the air in his lungs rush out so fast, so soundlessly, like he imagines things might reveal themselves to him to just be a dream because—

He’d known Rey’s legs go on for days, but standing like this? On one of her stools and reaching inside a high cabinet for something while her pert ass is exposed and the rest of her upper body is covered in the dress shirt he’d been looking for feels exactly like his dreams of her— except this is somehow so much better. Too soon, he’s expanding again, mindlessly cursing himself aloud for acting like a teenager who’d never had a boner before. 

The loudness of his curse causes Rey to whirl around and Ren tries to catch her from falling when he sees her dainty feet slipping but it was too late. 

Frustrated, Rey curses, rubbing at her ass while her knees are parted open, and Ren forces himself not to look as he helps her up. 

Sure he’s seen it, it tasted amazing on his mouth, but he isn’t sure ogling her pussy after literally being too much of a coward to say what he wanted —  _ needed  _ — to say last night was the right call. She thanks him silently, resolving to walk away from him, still on the phone, the slight wobble in her strides worrying him. 

But she’s still wearing nothing so casually, just the fucking dress shirt he just wore last night stretching over the nipples now perking to attention. 

The room is still slightly chilly and here he is, palming his cock through his briefs thoughtlessly, listening to the bite in her voice again and loving it. 

“A pool, you say? Now I know this is just all ridiculous.” Then she chews her lips, her neck craning to check her own ass out for the slowly-blooming bruise he’s sure will appear soon enough. 

“And Hux signed off on this? Are you sure? Hux’ll burn in the sun, have you never seen him?” Ren should really stop, he should really stop. He’s touching himself to Rey checking herself out in the living room full-body mirror, still acting like he wasn’t already there, hot and bothered anew at how casual, how at ease she is right now with him around. 

Her eyes landed on him then, and the slow, cautious grin that spreads on her face nearly sends him into cardiac arrest. ‘Goodmorning’, she mouths, before turning back to the call. “I’ll come to work, yeah. I’ll be late but I’ll come.”

And like he never expected, she looks up at him and adds. “Ren and I are coming to work, don’t worry. I’ll see you.” 

And then she’s clicked off the call before the person she’d been talking to could protest. “Finn is going to lose his shit.” 

Slowly, agonizingly, Ren lifts his hands from his cock and he tries not to whimper when her eyes land on his erection, willing thoughts of sex away in case she still wasn’t feeling better. 

He’s turning around to pick up the chicken soup mix he’d bought when Rey hoists herself up on the counter, naked ass stinging from where the ugly bruise is now forming. 

Ren moves to her in an instant, eyes worried and hands coming around her awkwardly, not quite touching. 

She ignores his worry, plowing through whatever layer of the game this was even as Ren remembers he’d pretty much said  _ fuck the game _ just last night. He supposes he was not entirely honest either, so he gives this on to Rey, turning his back against her and moving about to prepare her some food. 

“How are you feeling?” He asks instead, catching the way Rey dangles feet in thought. He likes that, it’s so cute that his breath catches in his throat. This  _ woman. _

“Better, thanks.” 

“Good,” he says, forcing himself to focus on the instructions for cooking the mix instead of the fact that Rey has resorted to pulling her legs up to her chest as she sat on the counter. It’s doing nothing to ease his erection. 

He thinks maybe she might just give him a heart attack when he turns around and finds her wet again, pretty little cunt vying for his attention, but she surprises him instead with something he’d hardly expected. 

“Is this the part you go full Daddy on me?” First, she says, and it made him shiver. And then, “Or is this the part where you tell me a convincing lie about what just happened between us?” 

Puzzled, Ren stares blankly at her and for a moment, he felt his chest hurt.  _ Are they still doing this? _ And he’d thought they’d moved past that. They’d just had sex, for Christ’s sake, and he babbled about her being his  _ sandbox moment. _ “Convincing lie?”

Rey shrugs. “In case Natasha finds out.” 

Even more puzzled, Ren sets the packet down, squinting at her. “I’m confused.”

She rolls her eyes. “So, you’re just going to pretend I didn’t know you two got back together since we started this bet-against-a-bet?”

“I really don’t know what you’re saying, Rey—“

“At Starbucks, Ren. You both looked so happy.” 

The pieces slotted themselves together, then, and despite himself, he wants to laugh at how stupid they both are. And he won’t even be wrong at that, although Ren knows Rey would be hard-pressed to admit anything to him she doesn’t want to admit. He realizes he doesn’t mind that very much. Ren had grown to love her spunk. 

Calmly, he strides close to where she’s sitting on the counter and he almost loses it when she opens her legs for him to slide in between them like it’s second nature. Her sex is hot where it meets his erection and he could just— it would be so easy to hold her down and fuck her here. Entirely too easy. 

But Ren supposes he’d indulge her, just shy of full-on selfish just to see how she’d react. “The convincing lie is that we met—“ he kisses her lips. “To fuck.” 

She looks puzzled but still receptive to his kiss. 

“That doesn’t sound convincing.”

He goes on, ignoring her words, hands coming to grip at her thighs gently, tracing mindless patterns with his fingers on her warm skin. “From now on, every night, we fuck, understood? That what you want, Rey?” 

Eyes shining, she nods, quiet as her erratic breathing patterns lull him into his own calm. It shouldn’t be as hot as it is, Rey willingly playing the role of side-chick just so she could sleep with him. Even though he knows that she’s got the starring role; she just doesn’t seem to see it. 

“Say it.” 

“We met to… fuck.”

“Every night, say it.”

But she demures, looking away like he’d burned her. Considering she’s of the mind that this is going to be some sort of secret relationship, he knows not to be offended. Instead, he leans in to bite at her neck, stopping when she flinches and sucking at her skin to mark her there. Naughty fingers rest on her soft folds and she shivers. He’s losing his mind with how soft she is, so, heedless, he sinks a finger in slow, the tiny stretch of her so delicious against his skin. As he pulls back, there’s a furious blush rising on her cheeks and  _ fuck, _ he loves that so much. 

“Every night,” the blush stays but her voice has steadied. “But won’t that bother… you and Natasha?” 

Ren shrugs. “Not as much as all  _ her  _ wedding planning probably would.” 

“You’re getting married?”

“Would be, if I was the groom.”

“What?” 

“Were you disappointed to find out I’m very decidedly  _ not  _ the groom?” 

_ “What?”  _

“You’re welcome by the way,” he grins wide, biting his lip. “I’ve got enough stamina in me to fill your nights with mind-blowing sex, Rey, you’ll love it.” To emphasize, he roots around with his thumb to find her clit. When he does, the reflex of her eye flutter and the slow snap of her hips pull a groan from deep in his throat. 

“Do you—” she bites her words out and it only makes Ren’s cock twitch deliciously. “—ever  _ shut  _ the fuck  _ up? _ ” 

“Can’t. Not now that you’ve pledged each night of your life from now on to being either dicked down by me or have your pussy eaten also by me.” 

“When did I pledge?” 

“Since last night? When you asked me to worship you?” 

“That was for my benefit,” she grinds out, and Ren notices how they had fallen in the serpent-like dancing of sizing each other up by staring at each other’s eyes, and their lips without actually kissing. 

“As it had been for mine. Your pussy tastes like all I need.”

“That’s so corny.” Rey snorts but suppresses a whimper when he pins her with a stare and brings his hand to his lips to lick her wetness there. 

“You misspoke ‘horny’.” Ren retorts, pulling her close to him some more. 

* * *

“Do you think I’ll get coochie allergies from this?” Rose asks and Poe tries not to spit his water — or let it come out of his nose. He stares at her for a whole minute, bewildered, but Rose just reads the fine print on the packet of — and here he squints — ‘Arctic Cool Wet Wipes.’ 

_ “Coochie allergies? _ What are you, 12? Come on, Rose.” 

Rose looks up. “But my pussy felt cool when I—” 

“Ooookay, sister. Where’s Finn? I’m not cut out for this. Finn!—” he turns his head to Finn still standing in front of the fridges, picking out a goddamn Gatorade flavor even though it’s been nearly 10 minutes. It’s not, actually, he’s just wont to exaggerate. Rose issues a small laugh beside him but remains eerily silent the next couple of minutes Poe is still fixing his gaze on Finn, willing him with his mind to turn around. 

He frowns. No dice, then. But then Rose is tugging his sleeve, the force becoming more deliberate when he refuses to turn around. Irritated, Poe turns his head, snapping “What?” and Rose does not flinch, just points a finger at a certain area in the cafeteria where—

“Well, I’ll be,” Finn says, having come back to the table with Glacier Freeze.

Just about five rows over are Ren and Rey standing side by side. Casually… chatting. 

Poe tries not to smile as widely as he already is. Rey looks  _ very  _ well taken care of if he does say so himself. Finn drops down to the seat beside him, eyeing him with those gorgeous eyes. Poe can’t decide whether to kiss him or laugh in his face. So, he slings an arm around his neck and does both, kissing him softly on the lips and chuckling to himself. 

“I may have… nudged them a little.” 

Finn blinks at him. 

“Just a little.” 

Finn just turns to regard Ren and Rey, in line for food at the cafeteria,  _ together. _ It was like one of those one-night-only events except this was happening at around noon, and when Finn thought Rey had been fucking around when she’d assured him this morning that she and Ren were still going to go to work, he hadn’t expected it to actually be true. 

“What did you say and who did you talk to?” Finn asks, settling his Gatorade bottle just a tad bit forcefully for emphasis. He knows Poe doesn’t get scared of him trying to be scary, but he sure as hell will try because Ren even looks like—

“He’s still wearing the shirt he wore yesterday,” Rose announces, and Poe’s grin only grows wider, if that were even possible. 

“Match made,” Poe says, pumping two of his fists in rapid succession like a toddler. Finn scowls at him now. A few feet from them, Poe sees Rey's also slightly stilted steps. 

“Whatever happened to the Bet List?” 

“Look, here’s a 20. I already got one from the weird bit.” 

“I’m still mad about that. I said discretion, and Rey was fully discreet when Ren approached him yesterday. It was Ren who couldn’t help himself.”

“Then I’ll give you another 20 for that since we’re both right.” 

The two budding love birds moved up a spot in line, then, and Kylo lifted his head to scan the space probably for an empty table. Rose covers her face with the Arctic Wipes, Finn pretends to examine the sad linoleum floor, and Poe keeps his head down to munch on his sandwich. 

“Just think of it this way,” Poe whispers, eyeing Ren striding around with his tray of food, Rey closely walking behind him, still casually talking to him like they hadn’t just been at each other’s throats since forever. “You were right when you said people changed, babe.” 

* * *

<Big Stupid Boyfriend>

_ You have to wear a bikini. _

<Rey>

im not

<Big Stupid Boyfriend>

_ Pretty please?  _

  
  


At that, she looks up from her computer screen at Ren who is still hunched, face looking like he’s hard at work even though, unbeknownst to the whole office, he’s pestering her to wear close-to-nothing on this blasted pool party event that they want to have for some reason. Even Finn sounded exasperated when he’d told her. 

  
  


<Rey>

the physical appearance of please makes no difference; it is still no. 

<Big Stupid Boyfriend>

_ … _

_ Is that from Despicable Me?  _

<Rey>

sometimes i wonder y u pretend to be a movie snob 

u can name movie quotes off the top of ur head

<Big Stupid Boyfriend>

_ Only because you force me to watch it.  _

<Rey>

n i wonder how u remember that, too, 

isnt it hard to hear the world wt ur face buried in my cunt?

  
  


She watches as a slow smile spreads across his plush lips, lips she’s kissed so many times by now. 

  
  


<Big Stupid Boyfriend>

_ Wanna bet that it’s something special, this pool party?  _

  
  


Rey frowns at that, the thought not crossing her mind. 

  
  


<Rey>

y’d u think that? 

<Big Stupid Boyfriend>

_ I just get the feeling. _

<Rey>

how very convincing, mr. ren 

<Big Stupid Boyfriend>

_ Why thank you. _

  
  


And it’s so stupid how weird things have been since they’d slept together. Weird as in good. As in, she realizes she doesn’t really mind Ren’s grating comebacks anymore and thinks that maybe they’d been prepared to deal with each other’s bullshit long before they decided to act on the attraction that lay there. She supposes they have Finn and Poe to thank for that. 

Speaking of the devils, Rey turns to watch Finn, typing away at his computer, obviously in the zone. They had come clean about the bet a week ago, and so did Rey who told a very amused Poe and a very frowny Finn that Rose had been a double agent all along. While Poe finds it amusing that Rey had been dumb enough to play into the Bet List without them realizing it, Finn focused on the feeling of being the only one left in the dark, a feeling that had not abated for at least the rest of the 24-hour-period from when she told them. 

But when he came back out of that, Finn’s first instinct was to apologize to Rey for being standoffish. To which Rey only said is not that big a deal since she should probably even take them out for dinner sometime, as a thank you, on an ironic double date where she and Ren won’t act antagonistically for the sake of messing with their friends. 

Here and now, Rey hesitates to disturb him, but does so anyway, gently. 

“Finn.” 

He turns slowly, but not after finishing up a paragraph. “Yeah?” 

“Wanna bet on this pool party with me and Ren?” 

Finn’s brow lifts, and she knows he’s seriously contemplating saying no. The last bet, after all, was a whirlwind of confusion for everyone involved. But tentatively, Finn’s face relaxed, slowly coming around to the idea. 

“What do you want to bet about?” 

“Ren thinks it’s something special.” 

“Ren,” Finn repeats. “Thinks it’s something special.” 

Rey nods. 

“So there’s a heart among that mass of internal organs he calls his body?” 

“Underneath all the muscle, yeah.” 

“God, Rey, keep it in your pants.” But when Finn notices she’s grinning happily throughout the conversation, she watches as a small smile forms on his lips. It’s the closest thing Finn has ever been to an ‘I told you so’ iteration since the Bet List got absolved and everyone went back to the ‘ol boring office dynamic. 

She’ll take it. Finn deserves all the recognition for courageously setting up the most insufferable adult children on a date. 

“What do you bet?” 

“That it’s not just a party. I think it’s a sendoff.”

Finn’s brows furrow. “A sendoff?” 

“Rumor’s been going around that Snap is thinking of quitting. And Warren says Paige was the one who organized and paid for the entire thing.” 

“Somehow, I doubt that. Paige is not that petty.” 

Rey shrugs. “Can’t be sure. Hux never said anything.” 

Finn nods. “I’d wager it’s a promotion. Leia’s been coming over an awful lot lately, and Hux has been putting in extra hours.” 

“That could also explain why Hux isn’t telling us what the pool party is for. Although a part of me thinks Hux would rather be caught dead than admit to anyone that he’d arranged a pool party of all things to celebrate a potential promotion. So you could be wrong.” 

“Or I could be right. Like I was right when I said Ren could change. Now, thanks to my smarts, he doesn’t scowl at you near the water cooler or look at you unsettlingly when he’s reheating a damn sandwich.” 

Rey rolls her eyes at that, hitting his shoulder lightly with the back of her hand. Finn chuckles. 

“I’ll ask Ren’s bet.” 

And it’s already waiting there for her. 

  
  


<Big Stupid Boyfriend>

_ I feel like someone is going to propose. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here’s that smut y’all ordered. It was honestly so hard to go through the ups and downs of thought that Kylo and Rey accumulated in the past chapters. And so, this has been a mix of angst, fluff, smut, and some needless pining because, well, it’s Reylo. Smut is already hard to write in such a convincing way and now I have to layer all these complex emotions on top of it. 
> 
> Thankfully, I pushed through with one too many drafts and came out on top. Had to re-focus for the humor, though, and then updated Something Between Us so it took me quite a while. I hope you like this penultimate chapter! <3


	7. Finn Loses His Shit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wave pools, "wet" suits, and a that damn proposal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI! Whoa, holy shit. I'm back! Before we continue with the story, I would love to extend my gratitude to my beta, lovingreylo (PeaceBlessingsPeyton), for editing my work when I was looking for someone to help me out. Especially with this chapter. Go check out her amazing fic, "Call You Mine"! 
> 
> I would also like to thank my friend Sarah for looking over this chapter~ 
> 
> ALSO, Remember when I said that the 6th chapter was the penultimate chapter?

It was more than a little poetic when Rey found herself donning an actual bikini like Kylo had asked. If she’s being completely honest with herself, she had utterly no desire whatsoever to wear a bikini. It was an office pool party where Hux will be in attendance, for crying out loud, and Nora and Wedge will be there and Rey kind of feels slightly bad for using them as a comparison for what she wanted her and Ren to be.

But when Rose leads her to one of those lingerie shops, she had little choice but to dutifully follow. She could have ran away, she told herself. She could have and Rose would’ve never resented her for it. There are LED displays overhead showing clips of beautiful women donning the flimsy fabrics she knows will only look horrible on her. Something Kylo said had solidified her resolve, though, as she’d strode inside and stared at flimsy fabric in lace, suede, polyester, velvet, in every color and design imaginable and placed in every direction.

_I feel like someone is going to propose._

It had turned her belly and had sent her strangely wanting. Which was ridiculous because she and Ren were only just a hair’s breadth away from the act of cutting each other down in anger about a month ago and now she was letting thoughts of frilly dresses and matching bridesmaids flit inside her mind. So, she’d woefully needed a distraction. The possibility of that happening was slim now, but the more idyllic part of Rey’s mind would be lying if it said that it didn’t wish for exactly that frilly-dress fantasy. Now that she’d known how easy it had been to rile up Ren when she squeezed inside a dress… well, wouldn’t bikinis logically make sure that he only stared at her throughout the pool party 

So, she’d caved, modelling bikinis for Rose in the dressing room and feeling insecure at just how odd she looked in near-nakedness. She blanches. _And Kylo had seen her like this?_ Ugh.

She winced but Rose had pushed away her worries by saying that _yes, if I was attracted to you Rey, I’d tap that._

And it was all Rey could do to chastise her friend for hanging out with Poe too much. The sweet girl had simply chuckled her way out of embarrassment, distracted by the thought, as Rey stood a little closer to the mirror to admire the black triangular fabric of the bikini top efficiently covering her breasts. Small as they were.

She frowns; there isn’t much to cover anyway.

What she did think was at least praise-worthy was the way the bikini bottom hugged the subtle curve of her ass and accentuated the expanse of her thighs. She’d kissed her tan goodbye in the rainy season, and the black on her skin looked surprisingly complementary.

Rose had finally moved out of her mirth, watching Rey watch herself in the mirror. Looking slowly up from her fingers running along the ribbons on each hip, she found that Rose was smiling so proudly now. She couldn’t help but smile back.

“I’m glad you’re happy, Rey, really,” Rose said, clasping her hands against her chest. It had made her blush, to be caught in the act of thinking about Ren in a way she promised herself she never would. He was in her head now, as she’d assessed the small pieces of fabric on her skin, tugged at the slight bite of the strings around her neck and adjusted a cup so she could walk around without thinking about flashing Rose any more than she already probably had.

Finally letting herself smile, she’d winked at Rose. “The thought of Ren trying to hide an erection at an office party is making me feel like all this strutting will not be for nothing after all.”

Rose giggled, still with that proud shin in her eyes. “Oh, definitely.”

* * *

Rey ends up staring at the pamphlet in her fingers far longer than she intended, having read the short paragraph descriptions of possibly the most impressive wave pool that she’s ever seen. Or will ever see. She’s never been in one. So one could imagine how terrified she is that perhaps she has miscalculated her, err, attire of choice for later, a part of her brain relentlessly asking her why she just didn’t go with a wetsuit or something more… supportive.

Don’t wave pools have strong waves? Will she drown in that? Now that she thinks about it, she doesn’t even know how to swim, the downside of not being able to grow up with a body of water nearby. And while the thought of crashing, artificial waves terrify her, there’s also a flutter of excitement in her belly.

Beside her, she looks at Ren, sunglasses on even if he’s inside a car, hand on the steering wheel and scowl on his face. He’s not mad. Some things just never change.

She turns the pamphlet in her hands as he makes a turn, his forearm coming forward and his muscle flexing there. God, he’s so attractive, what the hell. It’s not fair. “I’ve never been to a wave pool before,” she says, reading _The Deep End_ on the front fold for the umpteenth time.

He grunts. “I’ve never carpooled before.” 

As if on cue, Poe pops his head in between their seats. “Peanut?” He says, unironically referring to the roasted peanut he’s holding in his fingers. Rey chuckles and Ren’s scowl runs deeper when he eyes her take Poe’s offering.

Okay, so maybe he _is_ a little annoyed.

“You say you haven’t been to a wave pool before?” Poe asks, leaning closer to Rey. 

Rey shakes her head. “No. It looks dangerous.”

“Nah, wave pools are like Ren—“

“Are they now?—“

But Poe cuts Ren’s snark back, saying around a mouthful of nuts. “Intimidating on the outside but soft on the inside.”

Ren remains quiet and in the corner of his eye, Rey sees his muscle twitch. She forces back a laugh. “He’s soft alright.”

Poe’s eyes shine. “Ooh, do tell, little lady.” 

“Well, he’s got this cute pocket of belly fat that you can’t see but it’s there—“

“Rey,” his voice is a warning, and although his eyes are concealed behind a layer of tinted glass, she turns her nose up in challenge at him. Rey may be his girlfriend but she’s still an independent woman, thank you very much.

“Wow,” Poe breathes, popping another peanut in his mouth before scratching his stubble. “Didn’t think this day would come. Did you, babe?”

“Shut up,” Finn says back, head leaning against the window. He complained about having a headache when they’d met up at Finn’s place so Ren could pick them up, something about not letting Poe make him drink again. To which Poe just said, still completely un-offended, that Finn’s mother had called him last night and that the sting of the family situation he was in had driven him to promptly ask Poe for a distraction.

Now, here he was, nursing a hangover and drifting in and out of sleep. Ren had gritted out to Poe that if Finn so much as dry heaves, it was going to be car rental central for them. Thankfully, as far as the journey is now, no one has had any accidents.

“Love you babe. Don’t let your grumpy old man tell you who you can’t love.” Poe says, snuggling against his boyfriend’s shoulder. It was small, but Rey sees the corner of Finn’s lips tug upwards and then pull back down, no doubt a consequence of the hangover headache.

Ren decides to join the conversation then, unprompted. “How come _you_ don’t have a headache?”

“Oh, we just had some wine. Wine doesn’t do anything to me,” Poe says, picking at his peanuts again. “Vodka, on the other hand.” He whistles.

Rey interjects. “Finn buys the cheap kind.”

“I can hear you,” Finn mumbles, his voice gravelly from disuse. Poe smiles.

“And I can hear Ren thinking about throwing us out for all of this commotion.”

Ren grunts again. “You’re not wrong.”

“I would like to remind you that this was not our idea. So maybe don’t enjoy murdering us in cold blood or something,” Poe leans in conspiratorially towards Rey. She smiles and shifts her position so she could hear what he’s going to whisper. “Don’t worry. He had a knitting phase. He’s not that scary.”

“A knitting phase?” Rey gasps, as she blinks at Ren whose scowl at this point is a permanent fixture on his face.

“Yes, and I still have the needles in the glove compartment so you might want to think about shutting the fuck up,” Ren replies cooly.

“Remember when you used to say shit like that to Rey’s face? Now, I’m a little offended, but I’m sure I can manage. It’s because of us you’re together, after all.”

Rey and Ren both groan at that, and Finn is just content he doesn’t have to hear it all again, having already been knocked back into dreamland. Ever since the whole office knew officially that they were dating (Hux had somehow gone considerably _paler_ ), Poe had made it his mission to tell every living soul he could talk to about _that one time Ren and Rey kissed at the office. He liked to take credit for the idea._ He was only half correct, of course, although she distinctly remembers thinking about that same statement at some point and she has to stop herself from laughing at the serendipity of it all.

“Will you ever shut up about that, Dameron?” Ren mutters after a long-suffering sigh. Part of him doesn’t want to admit, but Rey knows that in his heart he’s grateful for Poe’s intervention.

Poe smiles wide. “Nope. Although, what I wanna know is this: what’s this I hear about another bet for this pool party?”

Rey hums. “Hmm. You’re not included.”

“What? Come on, I can nudge!”

“This is un-nudge-able.”

“But I wanna!”

“No, Dameron. This time, you watch.”

When Poe groans, Ren’s face breaks into his first grin in the last hour. “Shouldn’t you be happy? You’ve grown pretty used to that, watching Rey and I.”

“Grammatically sound, Mr. Ren. Doesn’t change the fact that I think all of your bets are wrong.”

Ren scoffs. “But we didn’t tell you.”

“I know everything. Like how I know Leia’s gonna be there, too.” Poe grins mischievously. Rey spots Kylo’s nostrils flaring, laughing at the image despite herself. He casts her what she knows is a venomous glare under those stupid sunglasses. She smirks back because there’s nothing he can do to intimidate her.

Poe has retreated back in a safe corner of the car, squeezing himself beside bags brimming with towels and—god, why did he have to have such an insufferable best friend—some bright inflatable pool rafts flashing disgustingly neon in his rearview mirror.

Ren reaches over to run his hand over her clasped ones before bringing it close, biting at her forefinger and adoring the way she levels him with a glare. He pushes his glasses up so she’s met with the entirety of his handsome face. _Oh, fuck my life._

“You had to get me to carpool with them.” He says, and she just beams back at him.

“I still live to see you suffer,” is her easy response.

“Oh, I’ll _make_ you suffer,” He smirks back, suddenly moving to the side to avoid Poe and his peanuts pelting against his arm and neck. Rey draws her hand back, laughing as Ren curses roughly.

“Boo! Nobody wants to see that!” Poe says, making Rey laugh some more. Ren looks rather forlorn and angry, like he’s trapped with no escape but he wants to snap anyway. She can’t help it, she kisses his cheek and sits back down before Poe can start pelting her, too.

* * *

“I don’t think this is a problem.”

Rey is having none of it. “It’s held up by _strings_ , Rose. Why did no one think to tell me it was a wave pool?”

“There are _other_ pools around it, Rey.”

“You knew how insecure I’d been at the shop, I thought this was just going to be a private pool celebration. I’m not walking around where people can see me and think about how— how— _flat_ I look.”

She’s hyperventilating now which she knows doesn’t help the situation but this is where she is now, she thought bitterly. Rose looks at her warily, rising to rummage in her duffel bag. Rey stands in front of the room mirror for far too long, mind racing a mile a minute at her mistake before Rose hands her a thick dark fabric with a neon pink trim on what looks like a zipper and thicker neon pink patterns on each side.

“It’s Paige’s,” Rose says by way of explanation when Rey looks curiously at her. “She’s got that horrible mesh poncho top on now. I told her it looked ridiculous but she just waved me off.”

“Will this fit me?”

“Dunno, try it on.”

The sleeveless wetsuit Rose hands her stops at her midriff, when she puts it on and zips up, the only evidence of her shopping blunder is the halter-top string on the back of her neck. Running her hands on the snug fit of it, she finally calms. Her black bikini bottoms are another situation entirely, though, she just hopes she’s shaved herself well enough for it to look presentable.

“Okay?” Rose asks, gently smiling.

“Okay.” She returns the expression.

* * *

Now, Hux has taken to the stage, grumpily ascending the steps in—to no one’s surprise—still a dress shirt and slacks. Poe comments on that eagerly, enjoying the annoyance etched in Hux’s face when he made sure he would rather be anywhere else but here. Leia was here, though, and Hux just felt obliged to come because of it. That’s another thorn in his side, too. Leia, his doting mother, standing off to the side of the stage somehow safe from all the hell Poe sees fit to put his co-workers in. Hux is saying something but he forgets about that when he suddenly feels slender fingers on the sides of his face.

He jolts in his seat but the person behind him just laughs that _laugh._

“Took you long enough. Where’s Rose?” He asks, crossing his arms and completely tuning everything out. He still can’t see her, but her silence clues him in that perhaps she’s thinking.

“Back with Paige.”

“What did you two do there? Please don’t tell me you trashed the hotel room.”

“I did not,” she responds almost immediately, indignant. “Hux is on-stage, damn. What if Finn’s right?”

He ignores that, letting his hands fall beside him and reach behind to try and touch her from where she’s standing. A soft calf meets his fingertips and she giggles, surprising him when she leans down and licks the shell of his ear. Goosebumps bloom underneath his skin and he wills himself to relax and keep calm before she’s doing it again.

“What.” The word is hard on his teeth but Rey just nuzzles the top of his head. “Do you think you’re doing, baby girl?” He tries at calm. Rey presses her chest against the back of his head, finally sliding both hands down his bare chest and kissing the moles on the side of his face. Fuck, he loves how clingy she gets now.

“Let’s go to the wave pools,” she insists, gleeful, finally breaking away from him. She reaches for his hand before he can think to grab her, and the sight of her firm ass in black, stringy bikini bottoms leaves his mind blank. His eyes stay there before Rey is forcefully lifting his chin up so his eyes are fixed on hers. They drop down still, and Ren’s fingers find the strings on both sides that are _so_ easy to pull… She swats his hand away.

And then she’s moving away, backing up on her dainty feet. She puts her hands on her hips and slowly throws her weight on one side of her hip so now she just looks like Ren’s personal swimsuit model. He bites his full lips and doesn’t miss the way she smirks at him and watches his lip catch in his teeth.

Ren returns the smirk before she starts talking again. “Looks cute, doesn’t it? Bought it with Rose.” There she turns around, slowing when her ass is to him, giving it a little shake. It should look silly, but he moves forward and touches her there, uncaringly and thoughtlessly moving his fingers against her skin. Before he could grab it in his hands or—god forbid— _grind_ against it in _public_ , Rey swats at his hand again.

“People will see,” she hisses, turning back around.

Ren will not be deterred. “Let’s go where they can’t see us.”

“What about the festivities?”

  
  
“Don’t care.” Soon he’s lifting her up in his arms, planting a firm kiss on her lips as he positions her legs around his wide hips. They don’t reach all the way around and he feels her groan against his lips when the sting of wrapping her legs around his wide body causes her to momentarily lose her balance. She reorients herself by holding tight around his broad shoulders, and Ren does his best to maneuver them away from the crowd and back in their room.

Rey protests when they’re at their doorstep, whining around whimpers and sighs about how she had so badly wanted to try the wave pools but here they were— here Ren was, sucking marks on the exposed parts of her skin even before they’d been inside.

The fumble for the doorknob leaves Ren frustrated and as he tears his lips away from her skin, she chuckles quietly.

“Fucking doorknob—”

Rey eases her way down, wrestling out of Ren’s grip to turn around and open the door herself.

“Keys?” She asks him, and nearly feels out of breath when he presses both the keys into the palm of her hand and his tented erection against her ass, rutting into her as she shivers and tries to open the door. Deep in his mind, he knows this is embarrassing, he knows it’s animalistic, but it’s high noon and he doesn’t care and he’s hot and the rest of the company staff are out listening to Poe’s shit and—

When the door opens, it’s like all hell breaks loose. Ren only manages to kick the door closed with his foot before Rey is tackling him against it, her kisses having lost their innocence and her body pressing up against his own. She swallows the sounds of pleasure from his mouth and follows it up with an insistent press against his erection and he groans. Kylo’s breath hitches when her lips leave his and for a moment, he’s disoriented. Rey is no longer in his field of vision and he thinks maybe it’s all just been an elaborate dream— until he feels the press of her mouth against the fabric of his swim trunks. His head thuds against the door in an instant, and he thinks maybe he’s losing his mind when Rey doesn’t _stop._

And then her slender fingers are on the waistband of his shorts and then there’s coldness and then there’s—

_“Fuck, Rey. Fuck.”_

Now he’s pretty sure he’s not breathing, watching her pretty eyes blink up at him through his own bleary vision. She’s so beautiful and fuck. _Fuck,_ he’d endure a whole carpool trip just to follow her every wish for the rest of his life. Her lips stretch wonderfully around his cock and there’s nothing but dim light but he can see her just fine. The warm graze of the afternoon sun through the windows makes him feel a little stuffy, but he does not dare move, groaning loud and long when she pops his cock out only for a moment to lick a long stripe up the underside of him.

_Shit,_ just the way she handles his cock like that, he can’t help but buck. And fuck it all, she catches him there, obscenely bobbing her head at half of him first, making sure everything is wet and lubricated before she’s sinking him in some more and Kylo tries—he really does—to prevent himself from bucking into the heat of her mouth but it’s too late.

She’s gagging. God, that’s so _hot_ but—

“Rey, are you alright?” His voice sounds far away, like it’s not his own, and she just nods her head, swallowing only a little and pressing her thumb against the head of his cock where some precome has accumulated.

He wants to cry as she sinks him back in again, much slower now, wants to both make sure she stays there and lift her up so he can fuck her at the same time. But she insists on her position, knelt down in front of him and diligently working his cock with a mix of her beautiful fingers, beautiful mouth, beautiful tongue—

He doubles over when she starts sucking him in as she’s pulling him in and out of her mouth and Ren has the vaguest sense of torture. Though that’s not right because this, he tries to open his eyes and watch as she breaks him, _this_ is paradise. This is something worth living for.

Every time she pulls back, he feels like he’s hurtling to a cliff and then coming back. Everything. Is. So. Wet. And. Tight. _Fuck_.

_Mary Shelley lost her virginity on her mother’s grave._ He recites in his head above the sound of Rey’s slurps and sucks and—

_Ethiopia just elected their first female president last 2018. You can see an Owl’s eyes through its ears—_

Her pace moves faster and he just does not want this to end so soon, oh god —

_When the first Star Wars movie came out, France was still using guillotines to execute people—_

“What? Really?!”

“What?” He musters the courage to look down. Her face is there, just inches from his cock, looking so criminally beautiful. But he only got that glance before he’s letting his head fall against the door again.

“Who was it?”

“What?”

“1977. Who did France guillotine?”

Well. Fuck. His face is aflame and he just knows underneath this hair, his ears are burning bright red. She’d heard _everything_ he’d said, trying to stop himself from coming too soon in case this is just all an elaborate dream. That’s when she slaps the head of his cock on her tongue softly, muttering his name around it. His hand flies in her hair and his eyes mist from the building pressure again.

“They– it was Hamida Djandoubi—“

She giggles, sliding his dick out and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “The fact that you can still think while I’m sucking your dick kind of offends me.”

“What?” He really doesn’t know how he’s still talking, only that it’s raspier every time she asks and every time he says something back.

“I said ‘come for me, Daddy’.”

_That_.

Next thing he knows he’s spurting white on her chin, on her neck, painting the front of that wetsuit white and it just— there’s so much and he feels so high and simultaneously embarrassed because he really wanted to slowly peel those clothes away from her himself but now they’re ruined.

Or made better. He doesn’t know, but he pulls her up and up, devouring her mouth even as she still tastes so much like his spend—

_“Will Mr. Solo and Ms. Niima get the fuck outta their rooms, please. Hux has an announcement to make.”_ Poe’s voice echoes around them and they are reminded of where they are. How close the rooms are to that goddamn stage.

Rey looks embarrassed but Kylo Ren just feels like he wants to murder someone.

* * *

It turns out walking out with a bikini on isn’t as nerve-wracking as she thinks. The wetsuit was a lost cause after what they just did and Kylo was more than happy to watch her rid herself of it.

Maybe that’s just because Kylo is more sated than she is. Possibly because she wanted what they just did earlier to have been… longer. Leia is looking at them from where she’s standing and it makes Rey slightly uncomfortable, especially since Kylo has resorted to hugging her from behind and resting his chin on top of her head.

She can still feel annoyance from his body language, the way he’s gripping her tight enough she can’t squirm from his embrace. She doesn’t mind, though, being locked in his arms like this, if it’ll make it easier for her to endure the rest of Hux’s announcement.

Hux adjusts his cuff links just before Poe hands him the mic.

“Right,” he says. “Thank you, Dameron. To the rest of the company, I would like to extend my gratitude for joining us here. As you know, I have been working for this company since its inception three years ago.”

Oh, shit. The bet. She almost forgot.

“Looks like Finn’s going to be right,” She mumbles. Kylo hums in response, a question in his tone.

“Finn. His bet? That Hux will be promoted?”

Three separate things happen in the time that Hux lets his announcement sink in.

The most noticeable is Rose sidling up to her excitedly, even as Finn looks momentarily confused that he’s been left at the table. He looks around for Rey and he smiles when he finds her, but does not stand up from his table.

Rey makes out the words Finn mouths: _Promotion_.

The second thing she notices is Paige with her face turned toward Snap and actually…

“Are they _shaking hands?_ ” She hears herself ask. Strike one.

Finn follows her gaze before he’s also gaping at the scene before his eyes. Hux is still not talking.

The last is Ren looking smug even from her position underneath his chin. _What the fuck_.

So, it’s not sendoff. She’s already lost. 

A small smile forms on Hux’s lips. “You all are also probably wondering why this… vacation has happened with very little warning. I sincerely apologize for tricking everyone into coming here by insisting that it was important.”

Ren bellows behind her then, making her flinch. “ _Is_ it important?”

Poe scowls at him. Hux is unfazed. “Yes. I am announcing my resignation.”

Finn and Rey look at each other. Strike two.

_I feel like someone is going to propose._

The crowd mumble quietly among themselves. Of all of them Leia looks the least surprised.

“I have decided to take a different path in my life and will accompany my father with his bird research.”

“ _Bird research?_ ” This is like that bet all over again—but it _is_ a bet. “Hux and _birds_?”

Ren chuckles low. “This is going to be fun, I can tell.”

Hux is not finished, glancing at Poe in an odd moment where it almost looks like he’s asking for her permission. Hold on—

“Although I argued we should just keep it under wraps, Dameron insisted there was no need for, and I quote ‘all that jazz.’”

Rey’s heart is thudding.

“Will Mr. Finn Storm kindly stand up.”

A blanket of confusion falls on everyone as Finn becomes the center of attention. He stands up, puzzled.

“Poe?” Hux hands him the mic.

Poe’s handsome face softens as he takes it. “Finn, baby, I know how much you hate wave pools and how much I love them. I paid a whole ass trip to make you love them as much as I do, so maybe you could love me as much as I love you, too. So today, even if the sky looks like it can’t decide whether to be gloomy or sunny, I ask you: will you marry me?”

_Poe_ is proposing.

Kylo laughs behind her softly and when she looks up his eyes are shining with pride at his friend.

Poe is proposing. _Holy shit._

Everyone is waiting with baited breath and watching as Finn stands there frozen, with tears in his eyes. Beautiful. This is beyond beautiful. Her best friend is getting married and she’s here to see it all unfold. Finn nods small, it’s almost imperceptible, but the full-on grin that breaks out on Poe’s face makes Rey’s heart swell. Why does she even care about anything when here Poe is orchestrating the most beautiful proposal she’s ever had the chance of seeing?

Ren becomes a blurred version of himself as she blinks at his eyes through the mist. He kisses her tears away. She realizes she's been crying. It’s so beautiful and she’s still reeling, confused and happy at the same time.

“I told you someone was going to propose.”

* * *

Rey falls silent as the day dies down and the sky shifts to creeping gray. He’s walking beside her by the wave pools, wondering why she’s suddenly gone cold on him.

Must be annoying for her to lose a bet, he supposes, especially since she’s technically lost twice now. So he keeps his distance as she watches the crashing artificial waves pull in and fizzle into froth. She stops and stares out at the pool, crossing her arms.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she says, much too fast. Kylo knows better.

“Rey, what’s wrong?”

“ _Nothing_.”

“Is this about the bet? Because you don’t have to give me anything even though my guess was right. I mean— technically, it wasn’t a guess as much as it was like an inside secret because Poe already told me that he was going to—“

“I kept my hopes up, sorry.”

“Kept… what do you mean?”

“You know what I mean! Don’t act all dumb.”

She’s blushing; oh, good lord, she’s blushing. All the way to her neck and chest. What— and then the pieces come together slowly. Paige and Snap’s reconciliation. Hux’s resignation. Her going out to actually buy a bikini even if she rarely shopped for new clothes to wear for anyone. Had she been preparing for something this whole time? Something from him?

“Rey are you… did you think _I_ was going to propose to you?”

She flinches, glaring at him. “Well, don’t say it like _that_. That just sounds mocking.”

“You thought I was gonna propose?”

Exasperated, her brows meet in the middle in consternation. “You just made it _seem_ like you—“

He feels himself smile so suddenly, his heart seizing. “You want to _marry_ me?”

“You shouldn’t do that, you know. It’s very annoying—“

“Rey. Yes or no?”

“I mean. I don’t know a lot of things in my life but… but I think I like you enough that maybe one day I can— I may want to m-marry you…”

“Oh, baby.” His voice is teasing. “ _You_ want? You won’t even give me a choice?”

“Forget I said anything. Fuck you, Ren.” She tries to stomp away but Ren’s hand stretches out to wrap his fingers around her forearm. Moving closer when he sees she won’t wrench away from him, he lowers his lips to her ears.

“Oh, I will. We will, Rey. But first, I want you to tell me all about how you want to marry me.” She groans and Ren feels that maybe he should really, _really_ give Poe and Finn a very thoughtful gift.

He’s not sure if she hears him above the slow crash of the wave pool before them but he says it against the nape of her neck, against her undisturbed baby hairs; words he’s always thought he'd never say to anyone.

_“I love you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who have been reading HNTHAOR up until this point, can you tell me what you loved about the story? Would love for y'all to sound off in the comments as we are nearing the end of the story. Thank you sincerely in advanced! <3


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